The Special Court’s decision not to immediately send the case against Ilir Beqaj and Ermal Kurtulaj to trial on the merits has immediately opened another procedural battle: requests to end the pretrial detention measure. The defense move comes after the case file was returned to SPAK for further investigative actions, a development that also raises questions about the pace and completeness of the investigation.
Request filed in court after the case was returned
One day after the Special Court sent back the case against Ilir Beqaj and Ermal Kurtulaj, a request to end the security measure was filed for Kurtulaj, who is one of the two people arrested in this case.
According to the defense, the request is based on a unifying decision of the Supreme Court on pretrial detention time limits. Lawyer Ermir Beta has argued that, according to the defense’s calculations, those deadlines have expired.
Beqaj also expected to seek end of detention
The defense of former minister Ilir Beqaj has taken the same line. His lawyer, Ermal Yzeiraj, has confirmed that he will petition the court to end the pretrial detention measure.
Beqaj and Kurtulaj are the only two people under arrest among the nine defendants in this case. Two commercial companies are also under investigation.
Why the case was returned to SPAK
The SASPAK agency file has remained under preliminary review behind closed doors for nearly a year. At the end of this phase, the Special Court did not accept sending the case to trial on the merits.
Instead, the court returned the file to SPAK for further investigation, setting a deadline until October 30 and requesting additional actions. This decision shows that the case was not considered complete enough to move to the next stage of the process.
At the same time, Beqaj is also on trial in the “Sterilization” case
In addition to this file, Ilir Beqaj is also undergoing ordinary trial proceedings in the case known as “Sterilization.” In that proceeding, the security measure against him is an obligation to appear.
This means the former minister’s procedural situation remains split across two different judicial fronts, with different security measures and separate progress in each case.
The return of the file for further investigation and the immediate requests to lift detention show that the battle is not only over the charges, but also over how the entire procedural process has been handled so far.
Attention now turns to the court’s decision-making on the security measures and to the steps SPAK will take within the set deadline.