‘The system failed’: Lleshaj says SHISH needs proven people with integrity, not experiments

Former Interior Minister Sandër Lleshaj has described Albania’s intelligence service as a failed system, following the scandal involving its director Vlora Hyseni, who is suspected of handing secret information to businessman Ergys Agasi, arrested in the “AKSHI” case.

On “Off the Record” with Andrea Danglli on A2 CNN, the former minister raised two hypotheses about the affair.

“The intelligence service system has failed; another system, SPAK, has functioned, but it functioned after SHISH, which concerns national security, failed. There are two hypotheses: either the system allowed the infiltration of a person without the integrity and credentials needed to lead the service, and that is the system’s failure, or a person with integrity entered and lost that integrity inside the SHISH system. We have no system when we don’t have a law on the service,” he said on “Off the Record” with Andrea Danglli on A2 CNN.

Lleshaj also bases his reasoning on the system’s failure to prevent unsuitable persons from entering SHISH — which is its primary duty. In the former minister’s view, the people entrusted with this task must have integrity and be proven.

“It is a matter of system and people, but a responsible system’s first duty is to prevent the penetration of unsuitable persons — not only in intelligence, but throughout the administration — and the question is who is the right person? Experience has shown that people entrusted with responsibility at this level must be proven persons who have demonstrated integrity in similar situations. You cannot run experiments, as the thesis has become fashionable here; young people, women, as clichés, as if these formulas give us solutions. Young people should be left to mature and prove how much they can withstand corruptive and career temptations. They must be proven,” he stressed.