Fredi Beleri granted special permit to attend European Parliament session
Fredi Beleri, currently serving a prison sentence in Albania for vote-buying, has been granted a special permit to attend the European Parliament session on July 16, where he is to be sworn in as an MEP. The prison commission in Fier approved a five-day temporary release for Beleri from July 15 to 20, allowing him to travel alone to Strasbourg.
Context
Fredi Beleri was sentenced to two years in prison after being found guilty of vote-buying, with the conviction upheld by both tiers of the Albanian judiciary. Last week, his mandate as the winning candidate for the Mayor of Himarë was declared invalid by the Central Election Commission. Despite being in prison, Beleri ran and won a seat in the European Parliament as a candidate from Greece’s New Democracy party, led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Beleri’s election and the fact that the Greek ruling party selected him as a candidate, has raised eyebrows given the fact that he is a convicted individual for election-related corruption which is not just a serious crime, but above all a serious crime that the European Union has singled out as one of the phenomena that had to be addressed with maximum severity by the Albanian authorities. Furthermore, the European Union, was also alongside the United States, an advocate of the so-called decriminalization law which prohibits individuals with a criminal record from running for office or holding public office. Several Albanian mayors and MPs have already had to resign over this law, in some cases for having committed very minor offences compared to vote buying. It is quite puzzling to the Albanian public that the European Parliament will not hold itself and EU member-states to the same standards it demands of Albania and admit an MP who is currently serving a prison sentence.
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