The CEZ-DIA scandal that ruined Ilir Meta over a decade

On Wednesday Ilir Meta has reported to the Special Anti-corruption Structure regarding a serious corruption scandal that involves one of his close collaborators and a fraudulent scheme in collecting the debt of CEZ, a Czech energy company that used to work in Albania during Sali Berisha’s government.

This is the second time that the same case is being publicly opened. The first time that the case began to be investigated was in 2015 when Ilir Meta was still in alliance with Edi Rama. Back then, BIRN had published several journalistic reports regarding Meta’s involvement in lobbying for a fraudulent contract in exchange for money. At the time, the Democratic Party criticized Ilir Meta, even though today he seems to be their most important ally. For Meta, his involvement in the scandal has had the greatest impact in his political trajectory as well as his mental health during the last eight years.

What is the CEZ-DIA scandal?

Following the purchase of the Albanian energy company OSHEE in 2009 by CEZ, the latter realized that there was a considerable debt due to unpaid bills. Therefore, CEZ signed a deal with Kastriot Ismailaj, a friend of Ilir Meta, in order for him to help in collecting the debt, even though the whole ordeal ended with DIA receiving millions without doing any work at all thanks to Ilir Meta’s lobbying and the support that Mr. Ismailaj received from Berisha’s government at the time.

Kastriot Ismailaj was allowed to sign a major contract, even though his company existed only in paper under the name Debt International Advisory (DIA), registered in the British Virgin Islands on 7 July 2010, quite a long time after he had already started to negotiate his contract.

Dritan Prifti, former Minister of Economy in Berisha’s government, stated in an interview for Top Channel that Ilir Meta had traveled to the Czech Republic in order to negotiate the contract personally. The contract was signed in September 2010 and DIA was obliged to collect every debt over 90 days old from institutions as well as private citizens who had not paid their energy bills.

Investigations would later reveal that DIA was a fictitious company, even though it claimed to have several employees in Tirana and branches in different cities across the country. According to an annex in the contract, published by journalists at BIRN, CEZ pledged to pay 512 thousand Euros per month to DIA as well as a success bonus if they managed to collect the debts. CEZ even gave DIA 210 of its employees and those who refused this were fired from their jobs.

On 25 November 2010, while the supervising board refused to vote the contract, DIA already billed 1 million Euros to CEZ as well as another 500 thousand. Both bills were paid that same day. The excuse was that these were bills for the identification of the debt, even though this was not true. As it was later revealed, these payments were made because Kastriot Ismailaj had promised to lobby through Ilir Meta, in order for the Albanian government to reduce the energy sales price in favour of CEZ.

Shkelzen Berisha, Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s son, was also involved in this story. The former director of CEZ for Albania informed his superiors at the time that they were going to meet with Sali berisha and his son. The evidences are clear, since the delegation for CEZ came to Tirana and after a few days, the energy sales price was dropped.

Three days later, CEZ informed DIA that they were going to cancel the contract and Kastriot Ismailaj took the case to the arbitrage court in Vienna. Mr. Ismailaj would get arrested on 12 May 2015 for several financial crimes, including the CEZ-DIA scandal.

What is Ilir Meta’s implication in the case?

Ilir Meta is accused of being bribed by Kastriot Ismailaj’s company, Debt International Advisory. The former head of the board of directors for CEZ, Josef Hejsek, has testified about this during the arbitrage trial, emphasizing that Ilir Meta has used his position as Minister of Foreign Affairs in order to negotiate with CEZ and favour Mr. Ismailaj’s company.

Lawyers claim that the damage caused by the contract and the political lobbying reach up to 30 million dollars for OSHEE.  Clifford Chance, OSHEE’s lawyer has stated in his report that the bribe was chosen to reach up to 500 thousand Euros, hoping to avoid the board’s approval. Furthermore, the report states that the claim that the payment was for the identification of the debt was false.

Josef Hejsek has stated in his testimony that Kastriot Ismailaj was treated as the “candidate” of the Albanian government about the collection of old debts only because he presented by the Albanian Ambassador in Prague as a close ally of the Ilir Meta, Minister of the Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister Sali Berisha.

Ilir Meta’s and Sali Berisha’s reaction at different times regarding the CEZ-DIA scandal

The scandal was made public in 2015 thanks to the investigative work of the BIRN journalists. Starting in June 2015 and continuing until fall of the same year, the network of investigative journalists published several reports that shed light on Ilir Meta’s implication in favouring his friend Kastriot Ismailaj to win the deal.

When the scandal became public, the Democratic Party requested the creation of an investigative parliamentary commission as well as for the justice system to launch a case. It was interesting to see the DP’s reaction, knowing well that they were also implicated in this story, since they were in power when it happened.

Commenting the case back then, I considered the Democratic Party’s reaction as an attempt to break Edi Rama’s coalition with Ilir Meta, since I could not find any other logical explanation for it. However, Ilir Meta was a lot more concerned. He was suspicious of the Socialist government and his new ally, Edi Rama.

One mid-September day in 2015, while Edi Rama was attending a UN Assembly meeting in New York, Ilir Meta asked to meet me, alarmed about what was going on. He said that he had read my articles and that he agreed that it was a political battle, which aimed to break the government coalition. On the other hand, he “informed” me about a different version of the story that related to a plot between Lulzim Basha and Edi Rama in order to get rid of him.

Meta’s explanation was tiring, paranoid and lacked coherence, but it was based on his fears regarding Berisha’s depth of involvement in the story. Since Berisha’s son had been part of his negotiations with CEZ, Meta was trying to separate him from Lulzim Basha, accusing the latter of a “secret meeting with Edi Rama in Vienna.”

While it all sounded delusional, I was trying to understand why Ilir Meta sounded so paranoid, or at least why he wanted to appear as such. His explanations regarding a “secret” meeting between Lulzim Basha and Edi Rama were obviously nonsense. In the meantime, his doubts that Damian Gjiknuri, a government minister sponsored by George Soros, had paid for the reports published by BIRN were just as illogical. It is a publicly known fact that BIRN is a network of journalists sponsored by donations from the EU, US and George Soros.

I tried to explain Ilir Meta’s troubled psychological state to Edi Rama, even though he had been maintaining a certain distance from this debate. After his return from New York, Prime Minister Rama met with Ilir Meta in his office and the “patient” seemed to have calmed down. Meta began to appear more confident in public debates. He even confronted Berisha in Parliament, saying that he had resigned once for Shkelzen Berisha’s mistakes and would not do that again. It was a clear warning that, if he continued, they would go down together.

Sali Berisha gradually gave up from his attacks. Noticing that Rama and Meta had amended their relation, he was less eager in continuing his battle.

But, an SMS published by the journalist Artan Hoxha in December 2015 reopened the debate. The SMS sent to Kastriot Ismailaj from Ilir Meta’s phone mentioned an amount of 200 thousand Euros, which Mr. Ismailaj should give to Meta in a bar.

Ilir Meta was alarmed once again. He still had doubts about Edi Rama and claimed that a businessman MP who had had ties to Dritan Prifiti was blackmailing Kastriot Ismailaj’s wife and the latter was fabricating facts. He went so far as to threaten that he would resign from the government coalition, but in a few hours, things had cooled down again.

Despite this, doubts remained and they opened a harsh conflict with Tom Doshi. The latter claimed that Meta had ordered his death, while Meta said the same about him. The conflict ended with Doshi leaving the Socialist Party, followed by Meta’s resignation in 2017.

The reopening of the case eight years later is witnessing a completely different political environment. Ilir Meta is now a close ally of Sali Berisha. None of the two can make the same accusations against each other.

The comical aspect of the situation now is that Lulzim Basha is accused by Berisha as well as Meta that he has collaborated with Edi Rama, even though both Basha and the Prime Minister remain out of this story.

Ilir Meta claimed that SPAK reopens the case every time the Socialist Party is facing a crisis, even though there has been no case against him so far, due to his immunity as President of the Republic.

Personally, I do not feel confident that there is a serious case against Ilir Meta even now, since a previous one against Shkelzen Berisha about the same issue was closed. Therefore, I am not optimistic that the investigation will go any deeper this time.

However, if anyone is looking to understand why Ilir Meta often appears psychologically unstable, I hope that this story will give out the reasons. I have first seen him like this eight years ago when this scandal was first made public.