The entrepreneur Francesco Becchetti, former editor of the Italian-Albanian television channel Agon Channel, has notified a writ of foreclosure against the Presidency of the Council and all the ministries of the Italian government for 135 million euros. Through his lawyers, reports the newspaper La Stampa, Becchetti has requested the seizure of all sums “up to the amount of approximately 135 million euros”, which the government has undertaken to pay to Albania on the basis of the protocol of 6 November 2023. Through his lawyers, the entrepreneur “has taken steps to notify a writ of seizure to the Presidency of the Council and to all the ministries of the Italian government so that all the sums that the Italian government has undertaken to pay to the Albanian government on the basis of the protocol of 6 November”. This is a complex legal matter, which began when Becchetti founded the Italian broadcaster in 2013 (the epilogue in 2016) with broadcasts produced entirely in Albania, and a few months after the start, in June 2015, the Albanian prosecutor’s office issued a arrest warrant against him accusing him of money laundering and false documentation.
“Final and binding award”
Becchetti, La Stampa always writes, today claims the right to that money on the basis of the award ARB 15/28 of 24 April 2019 by the ICSID Tribunal of the World Bank which condemned Albania to compensate the damages suffered, precisely for Agon, in approximately 135 million euros.
“The award”, he says, “is final, binding, executive and has the same effectiveness as a definitive sentence rendered within the State. Nonetheless, for 4 years now, the Rama government has refused to comply with the provisions of the sentence of the ICSID Tribunal of the World Bank, established by the Washington Convention of 1965”. In 2019 the International Arbitration Court held Albania responsible for the illegitimate expropriation of Agonset in violation of the bilateral investment agreement between Italy and Albania and sentenced Tirana to compensate Becchetti and other subjects with over 120 million in damages, costs and interest matured.
According to the former publisher’s lawyers, the court would have “established with res judicata effectiveness that Edi Rama and his government structures carried out a political campaign with abuse of police powers, inventing unfounded crimes against Becchetti, and has, also ascertained a series of facts which imply the commission of criminal crimes, still unpunished to date, such as, in particular: criminal association, illegitimate competition with violence or threat, coercion through threat, abuse of office, carrying out arbitrary acts, false expertise”.
Source-tg24.sky.it