VOA: Sky ECC, the 'weapon' against organized crime is challenged in the Constitution

2024-12-07 22:30:00, Aktualitet CNA

VOA: Sky ECC, the 'weapon' against organized crime is challenged in

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Sky ECC communications have given Albania's Special Prosecutor's Office an advantage in cracking down on organized crime and its ties to politics and business, but their use as evidence is recently being challenged in the Constitutional Court. This material was prepared by journalist Klodiana Lala and is a collaboration between the BIRN Network and the Voice of America.

In Albania, the fight against organized crime has been transformed by a technology that was previously used by criminal groups to communicate in secret. Sky ECC, an encrypted application that advertised absolute privacy, has become in recent years the main weapon of the Special Prosecutor's Office, uncovering thousands of conversations connecting criminals, politicians and businessmen in Albania.

Thanks to the dismantling of the Sky ECC system, SPAK has hit at least nine powerful criminal organizations, made dozens of arrests and shed light on serious events of recent years.

SPAK

These communications are also considered by prosecutors as an advantage to understand more broadly the extent of Albanian organized crime and its penetration into public administration and law enforcement agencies.

"Sky has helped us understand the extent of Albanian organized crime, which includes Albania, Europe, but also Latin, Central and South America. It has helped us understand the level of organization, the financial power that criminal groups have," says the prosecutor of SPAK , Klodian Braho.

"Also, it has helped us to understand their penetration in the public administration, the police, the prosecutor's office, as well as in the judicial bodies," he added.

Sky ECC is an application developed by the Canadian company Sky Global. This application offered advanced encryption and was widely used by criminal organizations for illegal activities, such as drug or arms trafficking.

However, in March 2021, French, Belgian and Dutch authorities managed to decrypt the communications. Prosecutor Braho says that among the users of Sky ECC there were thousands of Albanians, both in the Albanian territory and outside it.

Prosecutor of SPAK, Klodian Braho

"The Albanian language is one of the most used languages ??on the Sky ECC platform," said Braho.

But not everyone agrees with Sky ECC's handling of the data as court evidence.

One of the users is suspected to be businessman Pëllumb Gjoka, a strategic investor of the government, who is accused of premeditated murder as part of a structured criminal group that was hit during Operation Metamorfoza in July 2023.

Gjoka has appealed the decision to keep him in prison at the Constitutional Court, contesting his arrest as illegal based on the evidence obtained by Sky ECC.

The former Minister of Justice, Ylli Manjani, at the same time Gjoka's lawyer, defends the idea that the use of these data as court evidence constitutes a violation of human rights and privacy rules.

Businessman Pigeon Breast

"We are faced with the fact that we have massive wiretapping. With one wiretapping device, between the two communication servers of the Sky equipment, all the information has been taken. Whatever you find there, you can use it for national security data, but not as court evidence ," Manjani said.

"We are not in a dispute with Sky ECC. We are in a judicial dispute with the Albanian prosecutor's office and with the Albanian courts. The data obtained from Sky ECC must be subject to the control of legality in the country where they are used. If in France, even one court decision authorizing the interception of Pëllumb Gjoka, then we can accept the evidence," he emphasized.

Gjoka's appeal to the Constitutional Court is not the first judicial challenge against the use of data from the encrypted application as evidence. Similar lawsuits have been filed in the European Courts.

Constitutional Court

The former Minister of Justice, Eduard Halimi, explains that all decisions were unanimous and, according to him, converge in three main components.

"First, the right to protect the privacy of persons is very important, even if they have engaged in criminal activity. Second, the authority and country where the data are collected are responsible for collecting the data and complying with the standards. So France is responsible, she collected them and then transmitted them. The Strasbourg court says that these data were collected in accordance with French and European standards," said Halimi.

"Thirdly, each state must analyze and use this data in accordance with its legislation. Also, these data must be subjected to a judicial review to be considered legal," he emphasized.

Although the use of messages decrypted by Sky ECC has given prosecutors a significant advantage in the fight against organized crime, documenting the criminal events associated with these messages remains a complex investigative process.

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For prosecutor Klodian Braho, this process requires time, care and professionalism.

"On Sky you can find communications that have probative value, but you can also find opinion, conjecture and rumour. The challenge of the investigation team, the prosecutor and the investigators is to make an assessment of these communications as accurate as possible. This is done by combining the Sky ECC communications with other evidence, documents and witness testimony," Braho emphasized.

On December 19, the Constitutional Court's judicial body will rule on the matter, determining whether the use of Sky ECC data as evidence complies with the Constitution and international standards. This decision will have a significant impact on the future of the fight against organized crime in Albania./ VOA