US economic sanctions against Aqif Rakipi, what Rama said from Berlin

“Coming to Berlin to talk about the SP candidate in Tirana seems a little forced“, Rama answered after being asked by the journalist.

Recall that this Monday, the US has imposed harsh economic sanctions on former Socialist MP Aqif Rakipi and businessman Ylli Ndroqi. In the letter made public by the US Treasury Department, they are accused of involvement in criminal activities.

In Rakipi’s case, the main question is about his two relatives, his brother’s brother and son, both members of the Assembly, both of the Socialist Party, Saimir Hasalla and Ornaldo Rakipi. Top Channel asked a senior US Treasury official about the issue as well.

The answer was that “the consequences are for the mentioned individuals, ie Rakipi in this case, but evidence is being collected for every other person because the message is: We do not want such individuals to have these positions in Albanian society,” said a senior official of the Department. of the Treasury.

Meanwhile, a senior US State Department official told Top Channel that the possibility is being considered that persons declared ‘non grata’, under section 7031, point c, be subject to the same economic sanctions as Rakipi and Ndroqi. . Meanwhile, a senior Treasury Department official told Top Channel that the decisions are signals of how seriously the United States takes corruption, as corruption is the main problem in the Balkans.

After the announcement of the decision of the US Treasury Department, the son of Aqif Rakipi, the socialist MP Ornaldo Rakipi spoke for the first time in front of the media while entering the Parliament, stating that his father is clean and that he is ready to resign as MP if criminal acts are proven.

Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Northern Macedonia Nikola Gruevski and former Director of the Security and Counterintelligence Department (UBK) Sasho Mijalkov and former Chief Prosecutor of the State Prosecutor’s Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina Gordana Tadic are on both lists, also ‘non women ‘by the State Department, also economically sanctioned by the Treasury Department.

Asim Sarajlic were also sanctioned, a member of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s parliament and Svetozar Marovic, a Montenegrin politician who served as the last head of the Serbia-Montenegro government from 2003 until Montenegro’s declaration of independence in 2006.

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