On the official website of the State Intelligence Service, the key institution of the national security architecture, one slogan stands out above the others: "For us, the Homeland comes first. We work every day to make Albania safer."
But an investigation by the Special Prosecution Office into the head of this institution, Vlora Hyseni, has seriously questioned this mission.
On Tuesday morning, the Special Court decided to suspend Hysen from duty and place him under "house arrest" security measure, after he is accused of the criminal offenses of revealing state secrets and supporting the perpetrator of the crime as part of an investigation related to Ergys Agas, a controversial figure arrested for creating a structured criminal group with the aim of manipulating tenders of the National Agency for the Information Society.
For the same investigation, the court approved the search of the apartment and personal residence of the former head of the State Police, Ilir Proda, as well as the arrest of an official of the Institute of Scientific Police and a second person, who are accused respectively of leaking state secrets and supporting the perpetrator of the crime.
The accusations raised by SPAK against the head of the secret service bring to attention the way she was selected to head SHISH, while questioning the integrity of this institution as well as the country's national security.
Born in Kosovo in 1984, Hyseni held leadership positions between 2019-2021 at the Kosovo Intelligence Agency, KIA, when she was unexpectedly dismissed by Prime Minister Albin Kurti and President Vjosa Osmani.
Just a few months after leaving the AKI, Hyseni appeared in Tirana as a security advisor to Prime Minister Edi Rama. For about a year and a half she stayed out of the public eye, but on March 17, 2023, Rama announced that he had chosen her as the new head of SHISH, along with a strong statement of personal support. Her appointment was decreed by President Bajram Begaj in April 2023.
For Ilir Kulla, former senior state advisor and security expert, the problem begins with the appointment of Hysen at the head of such an important constitutional institution.
"The lady in question simply had an impossible mission, the task they gave her," said Kulla, also referring to the description of a former colleague of Hysen's at the AKI.
Kulla did not comment on the accusation, saying he was not familiar with the criminal facts.
"...But one thing is very clear to me, the wiretaps found in Ergys Agas's office are a noose left hanging for many in Albania," he emphasized.
Following the operation conducted by SPAK, opposition MPs demanded that the incident be treated as a matter of national security and be included in the agenda of the Albanian Parliament. The opposition considered this event as a “collapse of the state and national security”, while the majority MPs relativized the scandal to the individual responsibility of the senior official.
Arjan Dyrmishi, executive director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Governance, estimates that the accusations leveled against Hysen have already caused great damage to the reputation and integrity of the State Intelligence Service, which will require years and a lot of work to recover.
According to him, when people with this kind of integrity run important institutions like SHISH, it is impossible to know with whom they share the data. Dyrmishi estimates that the damage has consequences on a broader scale, given the fact that Albania is a NATO member state.
"At the moment we can say that there is damage to the integrity and reputation of the institutions in question, as well as damage to trust and cooperation between institutions," he said.
Dyrmishi also believes that reputational damage is part of the violation of national security, which, according to him, should be guaranteed by the internal architecture of all institutions.
"How the damage will escalate remains to be seen," Dyrmishi told BIRN. /Taken from Reporter.al
