Albania’s supreme court leaves ethnic Greek ex-mayor in prison

Albania’s Supreme Court on Friday upheld a verdict of the lower courts keeping a former elected mayor from the country’s Greek minority in prison after he was convicted of buying votes. A Supreme Court statement said that it upheld the verdicts of the court of first instance and the court of appeal which had sentenced Freddie Beleris, 51, to two years in prison. Beleris, who has dual citizenship, is also a member of the European Parliament. He won a Greek seat in the EU legislature in elections last month, representing the governing conservative New Democracy party. Beleris’ office in Athens said Friday that prison authorities have granted him leave for five days to attend the opening session of the new Parliament in Strasbourg on July 16-21. In Albania, prison department spokeswoman Fernanda Cenko said Beleris’ leave request was “still being considered.” European Parliament lawmakers enjoy substantial legal immunity from prosecution, even if the allegations relate to crimes committed prior to their election. In the case of Beleris, that rule is unlikely to affect the outcome, as he is serving time for a crime committed in a non-EU member country. Last year Beleris was elected mayor of Himare, 240 kilometers (150 miles) south of the capital, Tirana. He was arrested two days before the vote, accused of offering 40,000 Albanian leks (360 euro at the time) to buy eight votes. Beleris was never sworn in because he was under arrest and later sentenced to two years imprisonment. Beleris has denied the charges, and Athens has described his detention as politically motivated. After the appeal court verdict, Albanian election authorities stripped Beleris of his post as Himara’s mayor and a new election will be held Aug. 4. Beleris’ case has strained ties between Tirana and Athens, with Greece saying the case could harm Albania’s application to join the European Union. Albania, a candidate country, is in the process of negotiating full membership.

Giuliani Disbarred in N.Y. for Wrongdoing During Trump’s 2020 Campaign

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, federal prosecutor and legal adviser to Donald Trump, was disbarred in New York on Tuesday after a court found he repeatedly made false statements about Trump’s 2020 election loss. The Manhattan appeals court ruled Giuliani, who had his New York law license suspended in 2021 for making false statements around the election, is no longer allowed to practice law in the state, effective immediately. “The seriousness of respondent’s misconduct cannot be overstated,” the decision reads. Giuliani “flagrantly misused” his position and “baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country’s electoral process.” “In so doing, respondent not only deliberately violated some of the most fundamental tenets of the legal profession, but he also actively contributed to the national strife that has followed the 2020 Presidential election, for which he is entirely unrepentant,” the court wrote. Giuliani said Tuesday that he wasn’t surprised to lose his law license in his hometown, claiming in a post on the social media platform X that the case was “based on an activist complaint, replete with false arguments.” The former mob prosecutor was admitted to the New York bar in 1969, but before pleading Trump’s case in November 2020, Giuliani had not appeared in court as an attorney since 1992, according to court records. A Giuliani spokesperson, Ted Goodman, said the man once dubbed “America’s mayor” will appeal the “objectively flawed” decision by the midlevel state court. He also called on others in the legal community to speak out against the “politically and ideologically corrupted decision.” Giuliani argued in hearings held last October that he believed the claims he was making on behalf of the Trump campaign were true, but the court, in its decision, said it wasn’t convinced. “Contrary to respondent’s allegations, there is nothing on the record before us that would permit the conclusion that respondent lacked knowledge of the falsehood of the numerous statements that he made, and that he had a good faith basis to believe them to be true,” the decision reads. Among other things, the court said it found that Giuliani “falsely and dishonestly” claimed during the 2020 Presidential election that thousands of votes were cast in the names of dead people in Philadelphia, including a ballot in the name of the late boxing great Joe Frazier. He also falsely claimed people were taken from nearby Camden, New Jersey, to vote illegally in the Pennsylvania city, the court said.