Charges Against the SHISH Chief Call Albania’s National Security Into Question

By: Edmond Hoxhaj

On the official website of the State Intelligence Service, the key institution of the national security architecture, one slogan stands out above the rest: “For us, the Homeland comes first. We work every day to make Albania safer.”

But a Special Prosecution investigation into the head of this institution, Vlora Hyseni, has seriously called that mission into question.

On Tuesday morning, the Special Court decided to suspend Hyseni from duty and place her under the “house arrest” security measure, as she is accused of the criminal offenses of disclosing state secrets and aiding the perpetrator of a crime, as part of an investigation linked to Ergys Agasi, a controversial figure arrested for creating a structured criminal group aimed at manipulating tenders of the National Agency for the Information Society.

In the same investigation, the court approved the search of the residence and person of former State Police chief Ilir Proda, as well as the arrest of an official of the Institute of Scientific Police and a second person, who are accused respectively of disclosing state secrets and aiding the perpetrator of a crime.

The charges brought by SPAK against the secret service chief bring back into focus how she was selected to lead SHISH, while calling into question the integrity of this institution as well as the country’s national security.

Born in Kosovo in 1984, Hyseni held leadership posts between 2019 and 2021 at the Kosovo Intelligence Agency, KIA, when she was unexpectedly dismissed by Prime Minister Albin Kurti and President Vjosa Osmani.

Only a few months after leaving KIA, Hyseni surfaced 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 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, former senior state adviser and security expert, the problem begins with Hyseni’s appointment at the helm of such an important institution.

“Quite simply, the lady in question had an impossible mission in the task she was given,” Kulla said, also referring to the description of a former Hyseni colleague at KIA.

Kulla did not comment on the charge, saying he was not familiar with the criminal facts.

“…But one thing I am very clear about is that the wiretaps found in Ergys Agasi’s office are a noose left hanging for many in Albania,” he stressed.

After the operation carried out by SPAK, opposition MPs demanded that the affair be treated as a matter of breaching national security and placed on the agenda of the Albanian Parliament. The opposition described the affair as a “collapse of the state and of 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, estimates that the charges against Hyseni have already caused major 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 kind of integrity lead important institutions like SHISH, it cannot be known with whom they share data. Dyrmishi estimates the damage also has broader consequences, given that Albania is a NATO member country.

“For now we can say there is damage in breaching the integrity and reputation of the institutions in question, as well as damage to trust and cooperation between institutions,” he said.

Dyrmishi also estimates that the reputational damage is part of the breach of national security, which in his view should have been guaranteed by the internal architecture of all institutions.

“How the damage will escalate remains to be seen,” Dyrmishi stressed for BIRN.