The accusations against Vlora Hyseni for leaking state secrets and aiding a criminal have damaged, security experts say, the reputation of the State Intelligence Service, which will need years of work to recover.
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On the official website of the State Intelligence Service, the key institution of the national security architecture, a slogan stands out above others: “For us, the Homeland comes first. We work every day to make Albania safer.”
But an investigation by the Special Prosecution into the head of this institution, Vlora Hyseni, has seriously called this mission into question.
On Tuesday morning, the Special Court decided to suspend Hyseni from office and impose the security measure of “house arrest,” as she is accused of the criminal offenses of divulging state secrets and aiding a criminal, as part of an investigation linked to Ergys Agasi, a controversial figure arrested for forming a structured criminal group aimed at manipulating tenders of the National Agency for Information Society.
For the same investigation, the court approved the search of the home and personal search of former State Police chief Ilir Proda, as well as the arrest of an official of the Scientific Police Institute and a second person, who are accused respectively of divulging state secrets and aiding a criminal.
The accusations raised by SPAK against the head of the secret service bring attention back to how she was selected to lead SHISH, while putting into question the integrity of this institution and the country’s national security.
Born in Kosovo in 1984, Hyseni held leadership positions between 2019 and 2021 at the Kosovo Intelligence Agency, AKI, when she was unexpectedly dismissed by Prime Minister Albin Kurti and President Vjosa Osmani.
Just a few months after leaving AKI, Hyseni appeared in Tirana as security adviser 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, a former senior state adviser and security expert, the problem begins with Hyseni’s appointment to head such an important constitutional institution.
“Simply put, the lady in question had an impossible mission with that task they gave her,” Kulla said, also referring to the description of a former colleague of Hyseni at AKI.
Kulla did not comment on the accusation, saying he was not familiar with the criminal facts.
“…But one thing I am very clear about: the wiretaps found in Ergys Agasi’s office are a rope left hanging for many in Albania,” he stressed.
After the operation carried out by SPAK, opposition MPs demanded that the event be treated as an issue of national security encroachment and be put on the agenda of the Albanian Parliament.
The opposition considered this event as “a collapse of the state and national security,” while majority MPs downplayed the scandal to the individual responsibility of the senior official.
Arjan Dyrmishi, executive director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Governance, assesses that the accusations against Hyseni have already caused great damage to the reputation and integrity of the State Intelligence Service, which will take years and much work to recover.
According to him, when people with this type of integrity lead important institutions like SHISH, it cannot be known with whom they share data. Dyrmishi assesses that the damage also has consequences on a broader scale, given that Albania is a NATO member country.
“For the moment, we can say there is damage in the erosion of the integrity and reputation of the institutions in question, as well as the damage to trust and cooperation between institutions,” he said.
Dyrmishi also assesses that the damage to reputation is part of the encroachment on 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 stressed to BIRN./BIRN
