According to information obtained by BIRN, based on the findings of the internal report, and confirmed by Shala, the three directors oversaw a special fund for secret missions, but failed to keep a paper trail of spending.
Between 2017 and 2020, the fund doubled in size from one million euros to two million.
Shala, who took on his role in 2022, told BIRN that in February 2025 he responded to an invitation from the Special Prosecution to give evidence about what he described as “well-founded suspicions… regarding the misuse of the AKI budget”.
The audit found that Driton Gashi, who ran AKI in 2017-2018, spent more than a million euros from the fund, but only half of which can be traced. This included a 350,000-euro cash withdrawal on the day he resigned.
“There is no record of the destination of these funds,” said Shala. “The incident occurred on the director’s last day in office. It’s up to the prosecution to answer where the money went.”
Gashi, who was convicted of abuse of office in 2023 in a separate case concerning the controversial deportation of five Turkish nationals, only for the verdict to be overturned and a retrial ordered, refused to be drawn on the allegations, and accused Shala of playing “games”.
“I have nothing to say to the media until I receive something official,” he said by phone. After resigning from the AKI, Gashi worked as Secretary of the Kosovo President when Hashim Thaci, currently on trial for war crimes in The Hague, was president. He was dismissed in March 2021 by current president Vjosa Osmani.
Services ‘not for public disclosure’