Former head of the Justice Reform Commission and former Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj has spoken out for the first time regarding the accusations that the Soros Foundation has interfered in the drafting of the Justice Reform.
He described this as a Balkan fairy tale, adding that the foundation has made an important contribution to civil society. Xhafaj made the following statement on the 'Java' show on RTSH.
'Fairy tale or Balkan paranoia. My entire family and I have not benefited from any scholarship from the Soros Foundation. This foundation has made a special contribution over the years to the establishment of civil society.
It has also contributed to the education of young men and women abroad through scholarships, and for this it has merit. In this case it is a complete fabrication. The office in Tirana does not have a single line written or influenced by them and taken from us. First, because the experts did not come from Soros but from the Ministry of Justice, from the Courts, they came from the Albanian bar.
The Foundation has only had one person who has been a representative, it was Kristaq Traja who was the chairman of the board of the Foundation. And this foundation has a merit because it has done part of the financing of the process like the Americans and the Europeans. This is where the Foundation's intervention in Justice Reform begins and ends, Xhafaj said.
What Mr. Xhafaj may have forgotten and is worth reminding him of is a statement he made in December 2015.
At that time, Xhafaj declared: 'I would like to express my gratitude to the Open Society Foundation for Albania - Soros, Andi and his tireless team for their strong technical and financial support, which was decisive for the smooth progress of the process and undoubtedly the initiator of the need for a constitutional change project in the country', – said Mr. Xhafaj.
Even the main representative of the Albanian team in the Venice Commission, Kristaq Traja, turns out to be the exclusive envoy of this foundation to the reform group.
The justice reform was conceived, organized and implemented by the Soros Foundation. A package of thousands of emails and internal documents of this foundation were published in August-September 2016.
These documents revealed that the 'Soros' network had drafted a detailed strategy on justice reform in Albania and the strategy had been ready since 2013. /Hashtag.al
*Read the Soros Foundation's strategy document for the period 2014-2017 in English Ketu
