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Misuse of state reserves/ Kosovo Special Prosecution Office charges a minister and three officials

2025-11-11 20:58:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Misuse of state reserves/ Kosovo Special Prosecution Office charges a minister

The Kosovo Special Prosecution Office submitted an indictment to the Basic Court on Tuesday against the acting Minister of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade, Rozeta Hajdari, as well as three others, for alleged misuse of state reserves.

The prosecution said that Hajdari, and two officials Irfan Lipovica and Hafiz Gara are suspected of complicity in abusing their official duties in order to gain wealth for other persons and causing damage to the Kosovo budget during the months of February and March 2022.

The state budget has suffered damage of around 3 million euros as a result of their actions, the Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.

They are suspected of having purchased a quantity of oil and a quantity of wheat abroad at that time, which never reached Kosovo.

All three are accused of committing the criminal offenses of abuse of official position or authority, and disclosure of official secrets.

The fourth defendant, RM, is suspected of aiding and abetting the commission of the criminal offense of abuse of official position or authority. Hajdari, Lipovica and Gara are also accused of revealing official secrets without authorization.

"Although they were aware that the location of state reserves constitutes a state secret, according to the Law on State Reserves of Goods, they knowingly made this information available to the defendant RM," the announcement states.

According to the indictment, RM then created conditions for others to commit the criminal offense, by directly mediating and negotiating, as well as proposing and recommending the selection of economic operators on behalf of state reserves.

Gara, director of the state reserves department, and Lipovica, director of the European integration department, were arrested in 2023 in this case.

Earlier on Tuesday, Hajdari said he had been notified by his lawyer of the indictment.

"As soon as I have received the full indictment document, I will make a more detailed statement to the media ," Hajdari wrote.

Hajdari, however, said that she feels "proud of the work I did as minister in the most difficult time - ensuring the state reserve of goods, with essential products for living, at a time when we were vulnerable, during the months of February and March 2022."

Albulena Haxhiu, deputy speaker of the Kosovo Assembly from the Vetevendosje Movement of incumbent Prime Minister Albin Kurti, defended Hajdari in a Facebook post, saying that she “is not corrupt, nor has she ever abused her official position.”

She called the indictment "politically motivated, without any real basis and obviously deliberate."

Haxhiu, who was justice minister in Kurti's previous four-year term, said that Hajdari "has done everything in her power to protect the country's interest and to ensure that Kosovo has state reserves, unlike previous governments, which had left the country without reserves."

Hajdari was questioned several times by the Special Prosecution Office as a suspect in the misuse of state reserves, but he defended himself silently.

The acting Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, has also been called as a witness in this case, but so far he has refused to go to the Special Prosecution Office, insisting on giving his testimony at the Prime Minister's Office.

The case of state reserves

In 2023, three people were arrested in connection with the state reserves case. Among them were employees of the Ministry of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade (MINT), led by Rozeta Hajdari, who, during her appearance as a witness at the Special Prosecution Office, chose to remain silent.

In 2023, raids were carried out at this Ministry after the publication of audio recordings by the Nacionale portal, where it was claimed that a quantity of oil, purchased in Poland, and a quantity of wheat, purchased in Turkey, had never arrived.

Hajdari said that the purchases for state reserves were made in accordance with the law, but did not provide further details, since the information about them is a state secret. She accused the police of taking documents classified as state secrets as evidence during the raids. Kurti came to Hajdari's defense, saying that "there is no corruption or misuse." /REL