One day after monitoring by the Ombudsman, the Special Court suspended for one year the prison sentence of Greta Gjoci, the 33-year-old who was being held at Pojskë Prison together with her 4-month-old baby. The decision comes after the case had raised serious questions about how a mother with a baby in her arms was being treated in prison.
The decision after prison monitoring
According to the publicly released information, the suspension of the sentence was decided after monitoring carried out a day earlier by the Ombudsman at Pojskë prison.
The movement of institutions only after the case drew attention once again raises doubts about the delayed reaction of the mechanisms that should verify such situations in time within the penitentiary system.
Leaving Pojskë Prison
On Thursday, at around 16:30, relatives of the 33-year-old arrived at Pojskë Prison to pick her up following the court’s decision.
Greta Gjoci was seen leaving the prison premises carrying her 4-month-old baby, an image that turned the case into a symbol of the public debate over the treatment of women and mothers in prison cells.
Her case and sentence
The 33-year-old had been sentenced in the call center group case and was later sent to a prison cell together with her baby.
It was precisely this element that made the case particularly sensitive, while the latest decision by the Special Court is seen as a major turning point in relation to how the case had been handled until now.
Silence before cameras, thanks away from them
Upon leaving prison, Greta Gjoci declined to speak to the media.
Her relatives, away from the cameras, thanked the court and the media for the way the case was handled publicly.
The decision of the Special Court suspends for one year the serving of the sentence for the 33-year-old, while the case has brought back into focus not only standards of treatment in prisons, but also the question of why institutional interventions often come only after cases become public.