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VOA: Neza and Ducka, the key points of cooperation between Rama and McGonigal

2024-01-23 14:47:00, Aktualitet CNA

VOA: Neza and Ducka, the key points of cooperation between Rama and McGonigal

In Tirana, Agron Nezaj, one of the key persons in the case filed in the United States against the former senior FBI official, Charles McGonigal, for his connections with Albania, was summoned on Monday to the Special Prosecutor's Office, where he remained for almost 6 hours. He refused to give statements or comments on the matter for which he was summoned. US Justice documents seen by Voice of America note that in the first half of 2018, Albanian-American Nezaj became a confidential FBI source for its investigations into Mr. McGonigal's contacts and movements in Albania. .

The Albanian Special Prosecutor's Office was set in motion by a lawsuit by the democratic deputy Gazmend Bardhi, where investigations were requested for the possible involvement of Prime Minister Edi Rama, who had met several times with Mr. McGonigal, in Tirana and the United States. The Albanian-American Nezaj turns out to have been the point of connection between the former FBI official and the Albanian prime minister. The latter stated that Mr. Nezaj "I have never known him before. I didn't exchange letters, nor interests or anything else, but I only met him in the presence of the former senior FBI official." In the meetings between them, Mr. Dorian Ducka was also present, who was also mentioned in the indictment against Mr. McGonigal. Mr. Ducka, a former government official, later served, as Mr. Rama himself stated, as his external advisor.

Mr. McGonigal pleaded guilty in September to $225,000 taken from Mr. Nezaj. It was McGonigal himself who in August and then in September of 2017 had asked Nezaj if he could provide him with a sum of money, which the latter gave him over the autumn of that year in three different episodes.

The Voice of America has read the document that the prosecutors of the Department of Justice submitted to the court on January 5, 2024. They are demanding 30 months in prison and a $95,000 fine "for serious breach of public trust".

The document explains that Mr. McGonigal asked for the money with the excuse that he needed it due to financial pressures and university expenses for his children and told the Albanian-American Nezaj that he would return it. Mr. Nezaj expected to cooperate with Mr. McGonigal for profitable businesses in the future.

According to prosecutors in the case, Mr. McGonigal not only failed to declare his receipt of the money, but advanced Mr. Nezaj's business interests and lied to the FBI about their joint activities, thereby concealing the fact that he had conflicts of interest and private financial interests.

"This essentially constitutes corruption that undermines transparency and trust in the integrity of the Executive Branch of the government. "The defendant had sworn to investigate and prevent crimes against the United States, not to commit them," the document states.

The guilty plea was entered in September in federal court in Washington under a deal between prosecutors and Mr. McGonigal's lawyers. He pleaded guilty to one count of the indictment, that of hiding material evidence, and prosecutors dropped the other eight counts.

Mr. McGonigal has accepted all the charges related to Albania, including contacts with Prime Minister Rama and Mr. Ducka. Asked by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly if on Nov. 25, he had "informed the Justice Department Attorney ... of a possible criminal investigation into a US citizen who had registered to lobby 'for a party that was not Prime Minister Rama', Mr. McGonigal answered "Yes".

The indictment does not identify the American lobbyist nor the Albanian party.

But on November 14, 2017, lobbyist Nick Muzin filed with the Department of Justice, albeit belatedly, documents on the lobbying activity of a few months ago on behalf of the DP.

The former FBI official informed the US Department of Justice about this case, on November 25, "after the day before he had received information about the American lobbyist from person B", identified as Dorian Ducka.

At that time, exactly two days ago, on November 22, BIRN had made public the fact that Muzin had declared that he had received 500 thousand dollars from the Democratic Party.

While in January 2018, the former FBI official receives information again, this time from the Albanian-American Nezaj. The latter, according to the indictment, received the information from the office of the prime minister of Albania. When last year he spoke in parliament about this issue, Mr. Rama said that "the time to which this moment refers, coincides with the days after the scandal had appeared in the media here, and I or my office did not have anything else related to this, except for the information of I went to the media that if we had them, how would we keep them hidden?", adding that "if I had any information, more than what came out in the media, about the terrible fact that the Russians were financing the opposition of this country to overthrow the government, I would have passed it on to anyone I could, without any discussion, from the partner organizations sensitive to these issues and the FBI definitely, the first one".

But in fact, at that time, there was no talk of Russian funding. The article published by BIRN did not deal at all with this issue, which came to light later, in March 2018, after doubts were raised by an article published by the American magazine "Mother Jones".

On the other hand, the prime minister has never given explanations as to why Nezaj and Ducka were directly involved in this case, the first becoming the FBI's confidential source on this case, and the second, Mr. Rama's advisor, sponsoring the trips of witnesses from Europe about their meetings with the FBI.

For their part, the documents provided by the Voice of America prove that the investigation was opened in February 2018, for some inconsistencies in the filling out of FARA documents, the lobbyist registration law, and that it had raised questions among the personnel themselves. of the FBI.

FBI officials' questions about lobbyist probe request

In support of this fact, prosecutors attached a letter from an FBI agent in which some identifying information was redacted. The letter is dated March 16, 2018, and the official who wrote it asks "why, given limited resources and the fact that many field offices are struggling to investigate more serious threats," the New York office is asking for an investigation into deficiencies in registration as FARA, presenting this as a threat to national security?”

Further, the clerk writes that he wants to be able to answer his superiors if questions arise.

"I would like to explain to them why we are working on a SIM/FARA issue related to Albania, when every day I fight for resources on some national security issues related to some high threat countries like. .”, says the letter where the names of other countries are deleted.

Also attached is the decision to close the investigation, dated July 25, 2019, after Mr. McGonigal's retirement, which states that "the New York FBI office has not concluded that ---- (name redacted) committed criminal activity while representing a foreign political force and that he had filed the appropriate FARA documentation with the Department of Justice." In this decision, the Democratic Party of Albania is mentioned by name.

Justice Department prosecutors have asked the court to sentence former FBI agent Charles McGonigal to 30 months in prison and a fine of $95,000, "for grave breach of public trust," as stated in the memorandum related to the accusations in the case of Albania.

The former top FBI counterintelligence official also pleaded guilty in August in a New York court to charges of violating US sanctions on Russia by working after retirement for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who previously he had investigated it./ VOA





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