Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama lashes out against Report for the episode on the agreement between Italy and Albania for migrant centers and call Rai. The head of the government of Tirana has once again attacked Sigfrido Ranucci’s broadcast, raising the tone with a long post on social media. But what caused the uproar was the phone call made to the company’s Director of Insights, Paolo Corsini, regarding the third network’s program service.
Edi Rama’s attack
“My grandmother who taught me Italian often told me that to err is human but to persevere is diabolical”: thus begins the long post with which the Albanian prime minister lashes out against Report, replying point by point in the service of the program.
“What reminds me of this now is this further misstep by Report, whose presenter sensationally perseveres with the same falsehoods already contained in the disgusting episode on Albania“, wrote Rama, inviting “not to persevere in the mistake of that horrible episode, but simply to close this inglorious page, possibly also publishing this small contribution of mine to the health of the Italian Public Service”.
The case
The Report highlights how one of the major facilitators of the agreement between Italy and Albania on the construction of the two centers for migrants was the secretary of the presidency of the Albanian council, Engjell Agaci, who in the past was the lawyer of some Albanian drug traffickers in Italy.
“It is the most scandalous slander on Albania” said Prime Minister Rama in a comment for Shqiptarja.com, one of the most important Albanian information portals, reported by Republic, underlining that “a broadcaster paid for by Italian taxes became the protagonist of a shameful episode of defamation against Albania, as happened in the years in which Albanians appeared in the Italian media only as murderers, traffickers, prostitutes and thieves, and Albania was presented as the cradle of crime in Europe”. Furthermore, according to the head of the government of Tirana, Agaci’s version would not have been reported.
Report’s reply
Following Rama’s attack, the response from the director of Report arrived, Siegfried Ranucci: “Agaci, general secretary of the Council of Ministers and close collaborator of Prime Minister Edi Rama, confirmed what we said in practice. In the reply email from Agaci, to whom we had asked for some facts, he has confirmed that he was the lawyer of some drug traffickers and to have contributed, since he became Rama’s legal advisor, to the creation of the protocol”.
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“After all, the version that was used for consultancy was given directly to our microphones by General Lisi. Everything we have said is about papers and is from a documentary source“, added the host of the program, announcing that “on Sunday Report will return to the issue of migrants”.
The phone call to Rai director Paolo Corsini
However, Rama’s fury against the Rai 3 broadcast did not stop with the attack on social media, but reached the top of Viale Mazzini. Following the report, the Albanian prime minister actually telephoned the director of the public broadcaster’s in-depth analysis, Paolo Corsini, who had already been caught up in the storm over the Antonio Scurati case.
A call for which she herself gave an account Rai in a note: “The director of the Analysis Paolo Corsini informed us that he had been reached by telephone by the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama – we read – In what is passed on to us as a short and cordial conversation, the Albanian Premier announced to the director the sending of a letter with the request for clarifications and clarifications on the episode of the show ‘Report'”
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“Letter which has already arrived and which the In-depth Management is treating like all the numerous requests for clarification and clarification it receives. The reconstructions that speak of a ‘furious phone call’ are devoid of any foundation” I conclude from Viale Mazzini.
“I didn’t call to complain, I never complain” said Edi Rama answering Gerardo Greco’s questions for Repubblica TV about the phone call to Corsini.
“I asked for the director’s contact, because he is the director of the public service of another country and I don’t know who to contact other than him,” he added.
“If the prime minister of a friendly democratic country had called I would be thrilled because it means that Albanian TV has reached a level that deserves a phone call“, added the Albanian prime minister.
“I didn’t call to say it was a crappy show – Rama said again – but I called to say ‘I want you to know that something happened in the public service that you direct that I think you should think about: we were not given a cross-examination and we were told that we did not respond’”.
Photo source: ANSA
