The Special Court of First Instance decided on Thursday, February 5, the guilty plea of three people accused of buying votes in the Lezha District to support the Socialist Party during the electoral campaign for the May 11 parliamentary elections.
The three defendants are Gersi Kaçorri, Besnik Uka and Artur Jahja, the first accused of active corruption and the other two of passive corruption in the elections. They were sentenced to one year in prison each, which was reduced to 8 months upon application of the summary trial.
Meanwhile, the panel of judges Flora Hajredinaj, Etleva Deda and Rudina Palloj decided to suspend the sentence and place the three convicts on probation for a year and a half.
According to SPAK, the convicts are accused of having, during the election campaign, in collaboration with each other, promised, offered and gave monetary sums to voters of the Kurbin Municipality, in exchange for voting in a certain way, in support of the political entity, the Socialist Party.
The investigation revealed that they were active in the election campaign in support of the Socialist Party, offering and distributing monetary means to voters to influence their voting patterns.
The OSCE-ODIHR report on the May 11 parliamentary elections noted that the ruling Socialist Party, SP, made extensive use of public resources in the campaign. According to the report, the SP benefited from the extensive use of administrative resources during the campaign, creating an unfair advantage for the government.
There were also many reported cases of pressure on voters, especially public employees, lack of independent media reporting, vote buying and the involvement of criminal elements. /BIRN/
