The court listens to the experts in the case against Sonila Qato/ The "Arbri" road tunnels were approved before completion

2024-09-17 22:06:00, Aktualitet CNA

The court listens to the experts in the case against Sonila Qato/ The

The former director of ARRSH, Sonila Qato

In the criminal process taking place in the Special Court of First Instance for Corruption and Organized Crime in charge of the former director of the Albanian Road Authority, Sonila Qato and her subordinates, three experts declared that the tunnels of the Arbri road were unfinished when they were approved as such in 2019.

Court-appointed experts presented their conclusions on September 17 based on questions from the defendants and their legal representatives.

The former director of ARRSH, Sonila Qato and some of her former subordinates are accused of favoring a shadow company in the 19 million euro tender of the Skërfica tunnel on the Kardhiq-Delvinë road in 2019. Qato denies the accusations.

The new expertise was carried out after an act carried out by experts appointed by the former Serious Crimes Prosecutor's Office in 2019 was deemed invalid and unusable, after allegations were made by the defendants that the experts appointed by the prosecution body were unlicensed and that one of them has been convicted of forgery. The claim of signing the act by an expert convicted of forgery was found by the court in previous sessions.

The former director of ARRSH, Sonila Qato

According to experts, tunnels T4, T5 and T6 on Rruga e Arbër were unfinished when the act of approval was carried out. According to them, despite the fact that the works were considered completed by the inspector, they were not. Asked about the reports made by the ARSH working group, the experts said that the described situation appears to be the same, without essential differences.

In view of the questions of the defenders of the defendants presented to the court on Tuesday, the experts observed that the approval act can be carried out even when all the works of an object have not been completed, but by describing those that are still to be carried out. According to experts, contrary to what is defined in the approval act, when there are still unfinished works, it cannot be said that the guarantee phase has begun.

The prosecutor of the case, Elvis Gokaj, asked for time to familiarize himself with the expertise act and to prepare the questions for the experts. He said he will present it to him next session.

For this reason, the court decided to postpone the hearing on October 1, at 11:00.

According to SPAK, ARRSH has initiated an administrative investigation into the implementation of the Arbri road concession contract, producing false data to argue the disqualification of the "Gjoka" company from the tender. The prosecution accuses the members of the working group of "Forgery of documents", with the argument that they prepared two reports on the same day that differ in content.

Also, it is claimed that the content of these reports has resulted in contradiction with the documentation submitted by the association of operators "Gjoka Konstruksion", as well as they have been evaluated by the prosecution as completely different from the data obtained from the minutes of the investigation carried out by the Police Judicial or expert report conducted by experts appointed by the former Serious Crimes Prosecutor's Office - report report that was deemed invalid./ Reporter.al