Ervin Ceta, a former boxing champion, grew up in an apartment building facing the playing fields of the Halim Xhelo High School in the city of Vlora’s Kushtrimi neighbourhood, where he would play football with the local children and work out on the horizontal bars to build up his muscles.
In a corner of the backyard of the school, where there once was a concrete bomb shelter that locals still refer to as ‘the tunnel’, there is now a three-storey villa with automatic garage doors, Persian blinds and iron fencing.
“I am nostalgic because we would play soccer in the school’s backyard. Right where the house is standing, the shelter once stood,” recalled Ceta.
“The villa has been empty for years and it’s seldom visited during summer, because they left for Tirana,” said the former boxer.
According to residents of the Kushtrimi neighbourhood, behind the terracotta walls of the villa once lived Artur Malaj, who for many years served as the head of the District Court of Vlora, and since 2013 has been working at the Administrative Appeals Court in Tirana.
Testimony from Kushtrimi residents, a report from the Classified Information Security Directorate, plus documents and testimonies obtained by BIRN, a complaint filed to the High Council of Justice, and documents from the High Inspectorate for the Declaration and Audit of Assets and Conflicts of Interest, HIDAACI, all tie judge Malaj to the three-storey villa, which is registered under the name of his former secretary.
However, these multiple indications that the villa might be an asset that has been hidden by the judge were ignored by the Independent Qualification Commission, IQC, which on August 3 ruled to confirm him in office.
The villa built behind the school in Vlora is not the only asset that raised concerns about the integrity of judge Malaj. According to evidence collected by the IQC, his family members own thousands of square metres of land and apartments, some acquired from individuals with a criminal background who are also connected with the country’s so-called ‘property mafia’.
Apart from the allegations about his wealth, the report filed to the IQC by the Classified Information Security Directorate, CSID, contains repeated accusations of systematic corruption and abuse of office, which were not taken into account by the vetting commission during the confirmation process for judge Malaj.
Queried by BIRN about the villa, the property in the name of his family members and the allegations of corruption, Malaj described the CSID report as inaccurate and denied any wrongdoing.
He also said that he had no prior information about his brother-in-law’s property transactions, but insisted that they were based on legally-sound contracts.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
