FLASH NEWS
Testimony in Court/ He took money to remove articles, journalist Elio Laze remains in prison
2026-02-16 15:09:39 / AKTUALITET
The Tirana court has remanded journalist Elio Laze, arrested for extortion, in custody. In order to delete a news story from the portal he runs, Priza.al, Elio Laze had asked official Klaus Shaqiri for 40 thousand euros. However, the latter thought the figure was high and they agreed that the official would pay 20 thousand euros.
At the time of his arrest, Laze was caught taking 5,000 euros from an official in an apartment in the "Kika" complex near the "Paris Municipality", which the journalist had converted into the portal's editorial office. However, while the Tirana Court decided to leave him in prison, the journalist surprised quite a bit with his testimony, claiming that removing news for payment is a legal activity and, according to him, even registered with the Central Bureau of Investigation. Laze stated that " just as you get paid to write an article, you get paid to remove it " and according to him, the payments were made through the bank and by contract between the parties.
"The money was paid to the bank by contract between the parties. In this specific case, he left me an envelope, I don't know what was inside," he testified.
As for the envelope with 5 thousand euros, which the journalist was caught red-handed taking from the official whom he was blackmailing to delete the article, Laze has claimed that he did not know what was inside the envelope. Laze should have removed from his portal, an article against Shaqiri. The news, which turns out to be still online on the portal's website, published in January 2026, is not related to work in the state, but to the official's suspected activities in the field of fraudulent Forex platforms.
Journalist Elio Laze, during meetings with people he asked for money to delete articles, claimed that he was working with other people, his "partners". Therefore, the high amounts he asked for, starting from 40 thousand euros, were related to the fact that he would also have to pay the "partner". The police are investigating whether he really has collaborators, or whether the alleged "partner" is just a scenario created by the journalist to increase the value of the blackmail.
The 37-year-old journalist is charged with the criminal offense of "Coercion by Threat or Violence for the Provision of Property" and "Fraud".
Journalist Eljo Laze was arrested on May 28, 2021, after his car was stopped during a routine police check. Officers found a pistol in his bag, and it turned out that he was under the influence of narcotics. At the time, the journalist claimed that he had bought the gun from a group of strangers for 200 euros, involuntarily, according to him, while he was smoking hashish in the area known as "Lapidari" in the hills of Tirana./ shqiptarja.com
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