TIRANA, Feb. 2, 2023 – Albanian opposition MPs tried to block parliamentary proceedings on Thursday, vowing to set up an investigative commission, after Prime Minister Edi Rama decided to skip a questions period regarding Mr. Rama’s ties to a former high FBI official who has been arrested in the United States.
The former FBI official, Charles McGonigal, is accused, among other things, of not reporting contacts and connections with Albanian officials, including meetings with Rama, and that he received undeclared cash from an Albanian-American man with ties to Albanian officials.
Mr. Rama had delegated the representation in the question period to the Minister for Relations with the Parliament Elisa Spiropali, provoking strong objections from the opposition MPs, who demanded that Mr. Rama should show up instead. With tempers flaring and parliament in deadlock, the roster of opposition MPs banned from proceedings grew after they refused the parliamentary speaker’s orders to follow Ms. Spiropali’s speech. The speaker had already suspended several other opposition MPs days earlier from participating in Thursday’s session, including main opposition Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha.
The McGonigal affair, with its connections to Albania, has served as the battle flag for the Albanian opposition for the past 10 days. According to the U.S. indictment and the media, the former FBI official had received in 2017 225,000 dollars in cash from Agron Neza, an Albanian-American man, after the FBI official made several visits to Albania, which included meetings with Prime Minister Rama, who also met McGonigal in New York. The meetings were done in the presence of Neza and former Rama advisor Dorian Ducka.
Beyond denying any wrongdoing, Mr. Rama has not gone into details on what the meetings were about. His absence in the questions session further enraged the opposition representatives, who said the affair was tied to Mr. Rama directly and he must answer.
“I am not seeking answers about an issue or activity of the Council of Ministers, but about a private activity of the prime minister, carried out privately, in restaurants, bars and restaurant parking lots. The problem is, why for a criminal activity carried out personally by Edi Rama, he tries to abuse a lady, in this particular case she is a minister, and hides behind her dress,” DP MP Gazmend Bardhi told parliament, shortly before being suspended and kicked out by the parliamentary speaker, Lindita Nikolla.
While parliament was being consumed with shouts and deadlock, Prime Minister Rama shared a post on Twitter, stating that “extreme defamation is aimed at manipulating the opinion with a case investigated by the American judiciary that has gone to court and has no connection with us here.” The prime minister also rejected the opposition’s claims that he was the one who bribed the former FBI official, referring to the “American justice” system which, as he underlined, “has no such accusation or claim.”
The opposition is unlikely to let the matter go any time soon, however, as MPs gathered signatures to set up a special investigative commission in parliament, which the ruling Socialist Party of Prime Minister Rama has the votes to block if it so decides.
Ms. Spiropali said the opposition has raised “a whole series of lies, deceptions and fabrications. You cannot come here and throw criminal charges, charges that do not exist in any file, neither for the prime minister of the country, nor for any other citizen of the Republic of Albania. You have received and will receive the answer. My question is do you want the answer or not? Then accept that you have the accusations for political consumption and you have no seriousness about dealing with this issue.”
The former FBI official, McGonigal, faces charges in two separate cases. In the case where Albania is mentioned, he is accused of not having properly reported contacts and connections with Albanian officials or of other countries and of having received money from the former employee of the Albanian intelligence services, the aforementioned Mr. Neza.
But the opposition claims that the money received by Neza was offered by the prime minister in order to, among other things, harm the opposition’s reputation in Washington.
