Did SPAK overexpose the SHISH?

By Fatos Çoçoli

A week ago, on September 21, 2026, the Special Court (GJKKO) approved SPAK’s request for the measure of “house arrest” against the head of the State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Vlora Hyseni. The news made headlines around the world. For the first time in the world history of intelligence services, a service head is sought to be arrested while still in office.

National security experts say SPAK could have spared the State Intelligence Service this heavy exposure. They argue that SPAK and GJKKO could have found other ways to ensure a full investigation with no risk of evidence tampering by the SHISH head, while also not dragging the reputation and image of the State Intelligence Service through the mud.

The Vlora Hyseni case cannot be seen only as an individual criminal proceeding. Because of the function she held, the way such an investigation is conducted and communicated directly affects our national security, the functioning of intelligence institutions and the trust of international partners.

Was SPAK seeking a second “popular trial”?

For this reason a legitimate institutional question arises: was it necessary to request the harshest measure for the head of the SHISH in an investigation process? And was there another way to expose the matter publicly in this manner, or did other institutional mechanisms exist that could have preserved both the criminal investigation and our national security interest?

Immediately after this comes the other question: by overexposing the SHISH with the request for the arrest of its head, is SPAK seeking a second “popular trial” after the Balluku case?

As citizens we would very much like to believe in SPAK’s seriousness and its non-dedication to popular trials, but the leaks on social networks and the history of interpretations by TV talking heads after these leaks make one doubt whether, unfortunately, SPAK was indeed seeking a second popular trial?

But why? Because the SHISH is not an ordinary administrative institution of our state. The head of an intelligence service is not simply a senior public employee. The SHISH administers sensitive information, human sources, operational methods and classified relations with counterpart structures of allied countries.

Therefore every criminal proceeding against its head has a dual dimension: the dimension of criminal justice, as with any other state employee, but also the dimension of national security. This means that, truly, the investigation must be maximally independent, but at the same time it must be maximally careful, so as not to expose methods, sources or operational relations that could harm our state.

The main question is not whether the head of the SHISH can be investigated or not. Of course he can be investigated. No public function should create immunity from the law. But the question, once SPAK has reasonable suspicion or evidence to open the investigation, is: what is the most appropriate institutional way to investigate an intelligence service head, without harming the functioning of the institution itself?

If there were two paths — the removal of the head from office and then the continuation of the criminal proceeding, or her arrest while she was still at the helm of the SHISH — choosing one of these two paths has very different institutional consequences.

In the first case, the institution can more easily isolate the individual problem. In the other, the institution itself risks becoming part of public and international attention toward a criminal investigation. Has SPAK ever asked the question: how much is the SHISH and our national security harmed by choosing the second criminal proceeding?

Was the other institutional solution possible?

Here an important distinction must be made. Resignation or dismissal from duty does not hinder a criminal investigation. If a person is suspected of criminal offenses, removal from office does not close the case. On the contrary, this choice could have created a clearer separation between the SHISH institution and the person who led the SHISH.

If a head resigns and then faces justice, the institutional message is (in this case without harming national security): the institution continues to function, while the individual personally answers for the actions of which she is suspected.

If a head is arrested while still leading an intelligence institution, then public and international attention shifts from individual responsibility to the institution itself. And here, we as a state and even as a nation come out very much the losers.

This is an important difference.

And some other questions arise naturally: is a model developing in Albania where proceedings against very senior officials take an extraordinary public dimension before the court pronounces on their responsibility?

Unfortunately yes. This happened in the Veliaj, Balluku cases and now it is happening with the Hyseni case. And the problem here is not only legal. It is also institutional.

Because justice must produce a court verdict, not a verdict of public opinion. Media, politics, social networks and public debates can discuss a case. But they must not replace the court. Here with us, it seems exactly this is happening. A popular trial, based on the way SPAK communicated a truly very important criminal proceeding of its own, but as a conclusion, such a trial is not really being held.

When it comes to the head of such a sensitive public institution as the intelligence service, the very news of the request for house arrest creates a very strong effect on citizens, but also on partner intelligence services. An effect that the country’s intelligence service institution itself is suffering strongly today.

For the SHISH, institutional reputation is not simply a personal matter of its former head. It is also linked to the credibility of the institution. That is why SPAK could and should have been as strong as it was, but also measured at the same time.