Albania is prosecuting the head of its own intelligence service. Prosecutors say she covered for a businessman on the run, and the house arrest has not been carried out — she is abroad

Albania's Special Court Against Corruption and Organized Crime ordered house arrest and suspension from office on Monday for Vlora Hyseni, director of the state intelligence service SHISH. The special prosecution SPAK suspects her of two criminal offenses — disclosure of state secrets and aiding an offender, specifically that she used information to help businessman Ergys Agasi evade arrest. He had been hiding for about eight months before his arrest. Balkan Insight ↗

The measure was not carried out on Tuesday. Hyseni was found neither at home nor in the country: according to Albanian media, she is in Baku at a forum organized by Azerbaijan's state security service, which according to the organizer was attended by nearly six hundred representatives of security and intelligence services from more than a hundred countries. APA ↗ Prime Minister Edi Rama dismissed her that same day. Albeu ↗

Two charges and eight months on the run

Decision No. 67 of September 21 does not concern only the head of the service. The same ruling sent Fatjon Kalluçi, a sector head at the Institute of Forensic Science, into custody, charged under the same disclosure-of-state-secrets provision, along with Embro Sulejmani, an employee of the Kodra e Kuajve agritourism complex. Balkanweb ↗

According to Albanian media, Sulejmani was supposed to have deleted security camera footage near government villas in Durrës, where Agasi allegedly hid. Searches also led to the villa complex in the Shkozet neighborhood. The apartment of former state police director Ilir Proda was also searched; his phone was seized, though no personal restraint measure was imposed on him. Agasi was arrested on August 26 in Durrës, and a former police officer who was accompanying him was also taken into custody. Gazeta Shqiptare ↗

The charges against Hyseni rest on Articles 320/2 and 295/a/1 of the Albanian Criminal Code. Exactly what she allegedly passed on, and through what channel, has not yet been disclosed by the prosecution — the official announcement indicates only that the suspicion concerns information that helped Agasi avoid arrest. BIRN Albania ↗

The AKSHI case: 59 million euros and pressure on competitors

The AKSHI agency manages state information systems — the registry through which practically all of Albania's electronic administration runs. SPAK is examining nineteen procurement procedures there, with a combined ceiling of approximately 5.9 billion lek, or roughly 59 million euros. According to the prosecution, the tenders were rigged with predetermined winners and inflated contract values. Balkan Insight ↗

The prosecution claims the group did not rely only on paper tricks. According to SPAK, this included intimidation, violence, and unlawful deprivation of liberty against representatives of competing firms, whom they allegedly forced to withdraw objections to tender results. The agency's Director General Mirlinda Karçanaj and her deputy Hava Delibashi both ended up under house arrest, and Karçanaj resigned from her post, replaced by Igli Tafa. Courts later eased their house arrest to a reporting requirement and a travel ban. Both deny the charges. Balkan Insight ↗

The second man the prosecution names as the core of the group, businessman Ermal Beqiraj, was arrested on July 24 in France — during an unauthorized flight over a nuclear power plant. According to SPAK, he used the proceeds to buy a castle, two apartments and vehicles, and deposited more than two million euros into accounts. Balkan Insight ↗

From Pristina to Tirana

Hyseni's résumé is unusual for this post in itself. Born in 1984 in Kosovo, she holds both Kosovar and Albanian citizenship and studied law and international relations. She joined Kosovo's intelligence agency, AKI, in 2010, became deputy director in February 2019, and briefly led the agency after Kreshnik Gashi's departure around the turn of 2020–2021. BIRN Albania ↗

Read also: Albania detained a wanted man from the incinerator case. The same evening, the street demanded Rama's arrest

On June 30, 2021, President Vjosa Osmani and Prime Minister Albin Kurti dismissed her from office. No reason was disclosed; Kosovo media wrote at the time about concerns over the handling of classified information. A few months later, Edi Rama took her on as an adviser on national security, and on March 17, 2023, he nominated her to head SHISH, saying she was a "full guarantee" of the service's reform. Opposition MP Gazment Bardhi objected at the time, pointing precisely to her dismissal in Pristina. President Bajram Begaj appointed her by decree on April 3, 2023. At not quite forty, she became the youngest head of SHISH in history. Albeu ↗

What allies read into this

Albania has been a NATO member since 2009, and SHISH exchanges classified material with allied services. That is precisely why the opposition is demanding that President Begaj immediately convene the National Security Council and clarify whether the case involved a compromise of classified information or of the security institutions themselves. Tirana Times calls it one of the most serious blows to the country's security institutions in its modern history. Tirana Times ↗

Rama distanced himself from his own appointee with the formula repeated in Tirana every time an official faces prosecution: the guilt or innocence of a colleague brought up on charges is an individual matter before the prosecution and the courts. He wants to agree on a new director with the president after returning to Tirana. Blendi Cuci, an MP for the ruling Socialist Party, called for waiting for the court's final verdict. Balkan Insight ↗ Gazeta Shqiptare ↗

The opposition goes further. Sali Berisha is demanding Rama's immediate resignation and an international arrest warrant for Hyseni. Former Democratic Party MP Ervin Salianji says the service has turned into an intelligence service of crime — though he himself served a sentence for false accusation in the Babale case and was released on parole in July 2025. Balkanweb ↗ These are political statements from a party whose own leader faces indictment by SPAK. Given that the prosecution has this time reached the head of the intelligence service, they have something to lean on — but it is not proof. Gazeta Shqiptare ↗

For a Central European reader, the case has another dimension of interest. SPAK and the specialized GJKKO court were created as part of the 2016 judicial reform, which Albania adopted under EU pressure as a condition of accession negotiations and which also included vetting of judges and prosecutors. Slovakia had a similar model of a specialized anti-corruption prosecution until 2024 — the Office of the Special Prosecutor was abolished that year by a parliamentary decision. In Albania, a comparable institution is now investigating the very top floor of its own security apparatus. European Western Balkans ↗

Limits of this account

The presumption of innocence applies — these are charges and a preliminary measure, not a verdict. Hyseni has not yet commented publicly on the matter, and it is not known whether she will return to Albania voluntarily. The Italian news agency ANSA wrote on Tuesday that the arrest order was not carried out because, according to available information, she is outside Albania, and its subheading refers to an alleged flight abroad. Her presence abroad is documented; an intent to evade proceedings is not — that is a gap no one has yet bridged. ANSA ↗

Most of the details come from Albanian media, which on domestic cases are clearly split between the government and opposition camps. The verifiable core — the date and number of the decision, the legal articles, names and measures — comes from the official SPAK announcement and from reporting by BIRN and Balkan Insight, outlets outside that divide. Claims about whom Hyseni served, including earlier opposition accusations of ties to Belgrade, which the service has denied, remain unsubstantiated and are not presented here as fact.

Nor do we know how great the actual security impact is. Whether the information that reached Agasi came from the intelligence apparatus itself or merely from the ongoing investigation is a distinction the prosecution has not yet explained — and for allies, that is the key question.

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Illustrative photo: the seat of the Albanian Council of Ministers in Tirana, to which the SHISH intelligence service is subordinate. Photo: ErtonKashta, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.