"Washington Post": Albanian leader denies corruption on accused FBI agent

The departure of Edi Rama from the Assembly yesterday after speaking for 45 minutes, has brought a lot of dissatisfaction in the media of the country, as well as foreign ones. The Prime Minister gave his explanation for the involvement in the "Mcgonigal" affair by reading the indictment but without giving further clarifications.

The prestigious American media "Washington Post" also wrote about this. Below is the full article.

WASHINGTON POST WRITING

TIRANA, Albania — Albania's prime minister denied Thursday that he bribed or gave preferential treatment to a former top FBI counterintelligence official who has been indicted in the United States.

Edi Rama, the leader of the ruling socialists, told the Parliament that the opposition wanted to "politically exploit a legal process in the USA that has nothing to do with Albania, the government or me personally".

The opposition demanded the parliamentary debate with Rama, alleging that he was involved with Charles McGonigal, a former senior FBI counterintelligence official. McGonigal is accused in the US of withholding from the FBI key details of a 2017 trip to Albania with a former Albanian intelligence official who allegedly gave him at least $225,000.

McGonigal met with Rama several times and urged caution in granting oil field drilling licenses in the country to Russian front companies. Rama had accepted the meetings but denied the accusations of giving money or preferential treatment.

"In the lines of the indictment there is no accusation or any other information except the accurate reporting of my meetings", Rama said in a 45-minute speech, after which he left the Parliament building.

McGonigal is also accused of working for a Russian oligarch at a time when he was supposed to be investigating them.

The center-right Democratic Party of the opposition in Albania of former president and prime minister Sali Berisha and the left-wing Freedom Party of former president Ilir Meta have demanded the resignation of the government since last month, with accusations of corruption, related to the crime of organized and weak economic policies.

The opposition has planned another national rally in front of the government building on Friday. On the same day, an appeals court will decide who should lead the main opposition democrats – Berisha or his predecessor Lulzim Basha.

The party has been hit by internal strife since US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2021 banned Berisha and his close relatives from entering the US for "corrupt acts that undermined democracy" during his 2005-2013 tenure as prime minister. Britain did the same last year.