Jailed Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj being accompanied to the Constitutional Court in October 2025. Photo: LSA
Relations between Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and jailed Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj further deteriorated on Monday after the Mayor claimed that Rama used a minister to pressure him to resign and to admit he stands behind the violent protests that have rocked Tirana in recent weeks.
Veliaj’s lawyer, Plarent Ndreca, disclosed that last Friday, the Minister of Justice, Toni Gogu, visited the prison where Veliaj was transferred last week with a list of demands from Rama.
Later, Gogu accepted holding the meeting but denied sending any such messages from Rama to Veliaj.
“I met with Erion Veliaj on Friday. In the exercise of my responsibilities as Minister of Justice, I went to assess the conditions of his treatment and to hear the complaints that had been publicly voiced by his lawyer,” Gogu wrote on Monday.
He added: “Those who know me are aware there is no chance, in this world or the next, that I would ever utter the ‘messages’ attributed to me. I am truly taken aback.”
Hours later, Veliaj himself posted two handwritten notes allegedly taken from the meeting, with Rama’s demands.
“I may indeed have less freedom than the Prime Minister but I possess far more dignity than he does … I challenge the Prime Minister to produce even a single piece of evidence to support his insinuations about the protests,” Veliaj said.
The allegations about threats being made against Veliaj emerged just days after his transfer from the pre-trial detention centre in Durres to one in Fier, a move carried out via a contested procedure. In the absence of a written order, Veliaj denounced the transfer as politically motivated and a “police abduction”.
The General Directorate of Prisons said the transfer was a “standard procedure” but that the transfer order had been classified as a “state secret”.
Veliaj’s claims prompted the Albanian Helsinki Committee to conduct monitoring at Fier prison, which revealed serious issues regarding Veliaj’s rights and legal guarantees, specifically about a lack of transparency over the reasons for his transfer, the classification of the transfer order as restricted information and obstacles to exercising the right to an effective appeal.
“Pre-trial detention does not entail the loss of rights that have not been restricted by law or a judicial decision, and security cannot be used as a blanket justification to circumvent transparency, proportionality, and judicial oversight,” it stated.
Veliaj’s prison transfer and his claims have become a hot topic, as Veliaj was once a close ally of PM and Socialist leader Edi Rama.
Political analyst Lutfi Dervishi said that, “for the first time, Veliaj is publicly challenging Rama using language that leaves little room for misunderstanding.”
“If Socialists begin to question whether they should support the party or defend every decision made by its leader, the debate ceases to be merely personal, and for Rama, a new problem emerges,” Dervishi said.
“Until now, the Prime Minister has had to contend with managing government scandals, street protests and the opposition in parliament; now he also faces public accusations from one of his most prominent associates,” he added.
Former Socialist minister Ermelinda Meksi commented that, “if Veliaj’s claims are substantiated, we are dealing with a highly concerning precedent: the use of state authority and instruments to exert political pressure on an individual in pre-trial detention”.
On a local show, “Opinion”, Veliaj’s lawyer, Plarent Ndreca, said that it all arose “from a message issued by Mr Veliaj regarding the Belgrade issue; ever since that message was sent, there has been a shift in institutional behavior.”
Ndreca referred to a congratulatory message that Veliaj issued about the recent elections in Serbia that toppled the regime of Aleksandar Vucic.
“Congratulations to the students for toppling the Machiavellian and populist from Belgrade! Student movements and protests do not signify the ‘end of the world’ but rather the end of ‘a world’. The sooner we as citizens and policymakers grasp this, the better equipped we will be to respond to the needs and expectations of this generation,” Veliaj wrote on October 26.
Albanians have been similarly protesting for almost five months against the government, with students in October joining the anti-government protests, demanding Rama’s resignation.
Veliaj has been in a jail since February 10, 2025, when he was arrested by the Special Prosecution Against Corruption and Organised Crime, SPAK, on charges of corruption and money laundering, allegedly carried out through a scheme that also involves his wife, Ajola Xoxa. He has denied the accusations.