Sali Berisha was already banned from entering the United States last year for “acts of corruption while he was prime minister.”
Albania’s former prime minister and president Sali Berisha announced on Friday that he has been banned from entering the UK for “connections with organized crime” and “corruption”, charges he denies.
On Thursday, the British embassy in Tirana tweeted that “this week the UK has taken action against a number of Albanians for links to organized crime and corruption”, without naming them.
Albania’s first democratically elected president since the fall of the communist regime and current leader of the main opposition, 77-year-old Sali Berisha, said he was on a list of people banned from entering the UK.
“I have been informed by letter that the Home Secretary has decided to ban my entry into the United Kingdom,” he said, adding that the document linked him to “organized crime and criminal groups,” a charge he described as “slanderous.”
He accused his main political rival, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, as well as US billionaire George Soros, of being behind the charges against him.
Sali Berisha was already banned from entering the United States last year for “acts of corruption while he was prime minister.”
A cardiologist by profession, he founded the centre-right Democratic Party in 1990 and two years later became the Balkan country’s first non-communist elected president, a post he held until 1997.
In 2005, Berisha’s party won the parliamentary elections and he served as Prime Minister of Albania until 2013.
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