Albania’s Special Court Against Corruption and Organized Crime (GJKKO) on 10 June 2025 sentenced Ilir Beqaj, the country’s former Minister of Health and Social Protection, to four years in prison for abuse of office in connection with a series of waste-incinerator concessions awarded between 2014 and 2017.
The verdict is one of the most significant results to date for SPAK, the Special Structure Against Corruption and Organised Crime that was created in 2019 as part of Albania’s EU accession-track judicial reform.
The Elbasan, Fier and Tirana concessions
The case concerns three public-private partnership contracts for the construction and operation of urban-waste incinerators in the cities of Elbasan, Fier and Tirana. SPAK prosecutors had argued that the contracts were awarded to companies with no relevant operating history, on terms that obliged the Albanian state to pay tipping fees regardless of whether the incinerators were built or operational, and that the procurement process was structured to favour predetermined winners.
By 2024 only the Tirana incinerator was partially operational, while hundreds of millions of euros in tipping fees had been paid out under the Elbasan and Fier contracts, neither of which produced functioning facilities.
A wider net
The Beqaj sentence is the first against a former minister in the incinerator case, but is not expected to be the last. Two other former cabinet members and several senior civil servants are under indictment, and parliament in April 2025 lifted the immunity of an additional sitting deputy named in the same investigation.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, whose Socialist Party Beqaj formerly represented, has denied any political involvement in the contracts. SPAK has not publicly identified him as a target.
EU benchmark
European Commission progress reports on Albania’s accession have repeatedly cited the incinerator file as a test case for the country’s ability to bring senior political figures to justice. The Beqaj verdict was welcomed by the Commission in a statement issued the same day, which described SPAK as “increasingly effective in tackling high-level corruption.”
Beqaj has announced an appeal. Under Albanian law, the four-year sentence does not become enforceable until appeals are exhausted.
