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Media Manipulation/ When Veliaj Turns Against the Monster He Has Fed

2025-07-30 20:18:00, Politikë CNA

Now that his political and legal fate has taken a turn for the worse, Erion Veliaj seems to have found his enemy. After SPAK released the 400-page file that justified his indictment, the acting mayor is pointing the finger at the media that play the Special Prosecution's game by infiltrating the reader with half-truths that serve as a public trial against him.

In a letter from his international lawyers, which was also published on "Lali's" Facebook page, "justice with newspaper headlines" is denounced.

“We, the defense lawyers of Mr. Erion Veliaj, express our deep concern about the repeated attempts to transform a criminal proceeding into a spectacular public trial through the use of SPAK-linked media and flagrant violations of the law, such as the illegal disclosure of investigative secrets. The custom-made articles, presented as “exclusive revelations”, do not aim to uncover the truth, but to build a ready-made public narrative before the case is proven with facts in a courtroom,” it said, emphasizing: “In a democratic and European state, justice is administered within the institutions of justice, not in newspaper headlines, social networks or “crime series” produced by controlled media through anonymous and illegal leaks.”

So there is no doubt that in addition to SPAK, Veliaj's international lawyers are also accusing a large part of the media, which, according to them, do not serve to inform the public, but to produce a "crime series".

If you look at this event out of context, both the acting mayor and his legal defenders are right. What they consider a “punishment for agitation and propaganda” with the help of many media outlets turns out to be true to some extent. Not for the Veliaj case but for all the sensational trials, such as those of Beleri, Berisha, Meta, Ahmetaj, the Special Prosecution has proceeded with the same method, using those that Lapsi.al has labeled as the “cell of SPAK journalists”, to previously stigmatize in public those it was investigating.

Even Edi Rama's former dolphin did not escape the same fate. From the first announcement that he was being investigated, the Special Prosecution Office included a paragraph in the statement, detailing the expenses his wife had made on dresses, jewelry, and lingerie. That was enough to start the process of public lynching.

Later, when the judge had to decide on the measure of arrest, SPAK emissaries in the TV studio spread the rumor that he would remain in prison because there were wiretaps from the cell that buried him. When these wiretaps were revealed, it turned out to be quite the opposite. Erion Veliaj knew that he was being wiretapped, and even told his own people to be careful when they spoke. But in those conversations, he came across as a mean man who gossiped about his party friends, who suffered in prison from jealousy for what Ajola could do outside, who played tricks to smear prosecutors.

So those intercepts that came out piecemeal had no legal value, but they imbued the public with the image of a basin that did not need to be investigated freely.

So, when Veliaj writes as he did this Wednesday, that 'Special Prosecutors ensure that everything is leaked to some special media before the victim knows, in flagrant violation of investigative secrecy, the presumption of innocence, the country's Constitution and fundamental human rights, whoever the person is and whatever his work is', in a way he is right.

He also tells the truth when he points out those "special media" putting a stain of shame on journalists and portals, who violate every code of the profession by playing the role of opinion-processing agents.

But, if we rewind the film a little, this media manipulation is the one that when he had money in his hands and power to exercise, Erion Veliaj has fed it in every way. He has worked with all his heart and soul to make the media what it is today, saleable, buyable, corruptible. Those methods that he used against activists defending the Theater, against critical journalists, against political opponents, by hiring journalists and financing portals, today karma is turning against him.

Just like the people who signed him with their eyes closed and are now witnesses to his burying, this sick media system has also transformed into a machine that is condemning him in advance, without the legal process against him having even been developed. This is the bitter truth of a man who, although he does not deserve it this time, is still being treated the same way he has treated others./ Lapsi.al