REPUBLISHED

The tower at ‘Zyber Hallulli’: a court orders an investigation, KISH signs the contract three days later

Erblin Vukaj · Originally published: 3 September 2026

The Tirana Court of First Instance has overturned the prosecution’s decision not to open criminal proceedings over the claims of Ismail Sureli’s heirs to the former German Villas, a property included in the Albanian Investment Corporation (KISH) project for the new campus of the “Zyber Hallulli” children’s home and the Inspectorates Complex.

The project envisages moving the children’s home from Rruga e Elbasanit to the former German Villas. Freeing up its current site would clear the way for a complex of three towers, up to 35 storeys high, whose architectural concept was awarded in late January to the group led by the studio Rojkind Arquitectos.

The court ruling, issued on 1 June and reviewed by Citizens.al, described the prosecution’s decision not to open criminal proceedings as unjustified and unsupported by evidence. 

Meanwhile, just three days later, on 4 June, despite this development, the Corporation announced that it had signed the contract with the company MOTUS to develop the project.

In its reasoning, the court considers that the investigation must examine how the right of first refusal over the buildings came to be omitted from the Cadastre’s registers, as well as the legality of the procedures followed by the Ministry of Economy and KISH.

Of course, this ruling does not yet establish that any criminal offence was committed, nor does it find anyone guilty. But it does find that the prosecution treated the case as a civil-administrative dispute without verifying the claims.

From SPAK to the dismissal of the complaint

Ismail Sureli’s heirs initially filed their criminal complaint with the Special Prosecution Office (SPAK). But it referred the case to the Tirana Prosecution Office on jurisdictional grounds.

The complaint raises suspicions that the right of first refusal over the former German Villas was infringed and that the plot registered as property no. 8/552 was alienated.

The claims were directed at the “Tirana South” Local Cadastre Directorate, the Ministry of Economy and Innovation, and KISH.

The complaint also included the company MOTUS, associated with the winning tower project, and the other companies participating in the Corporation’s partnership procedures. 

The heirs have raised suspicions that some competition participants may have served only to meet the formal requirements for competition. This claim, however, remains for the prosecution to establish.

On 9 March, the Tirana Prosecution Office decided not to open criminal proceedings. In its view, the problem concerned the administration of cadastral data and the effects of administrative acts. It therefore considered the dispute to be civil and administrative in nature.

But the court has rejected this reasoning. According to the June ruling, the prosecution could not conclude that no criminal offence had occurred without first investigating alterations to the registers and the individual responsibility of those involved.

Who and what is to be investigated?

In essence, the court has neither identified any defendants nor established criminal responsibility. It has asked the prosecution to make those determinations.

The checks are therefore expected to focus on the Cadastre officials who administered the record for property no. 8/552 and the working group that digitised the register.

The prosecution is ordered to audit the property’s electronic history, which includes any creation, modification or possible deletion made in the cadastral file in question.

The court also requires identification of the accounts that accessed the record, and the date and time of the alterations. The IP addresses and terminals used must also be traced.

In parallel, it calls for the seizure of the original property records, property files and old land registers, and their comparison with the 2014 documents and the 2025 cadastral record.

This comparison is expected to show what changed, when it happened and who may have made alterations.

According to documents previously reviewed by Citizens.al, decision no. 461 of 1995 recognised the Sureli family’s ownership of the land. But because residences for East German diplomats had been built on this land, and had been used by state institutions after the fall of the dictatorship, the former owners were granted the right of first refusal over them in the event of privatisation.

This right had been recorded in the land registry as early as 1995 and still appeared in the updated documents in 2014. But during checks in 2025, the Cadastre informed the heirs that the property record contained no entry for the right of first refusal.

They began making enquiries after learning that KISH had included the area in the unsuccessful calls for proposals for the development of the National Library. The Corporation offered the former German Villas site to a private developer as an incentive for the construction of a tower with a floor area of 60,000 m².

After a succession of complaints from family members, the Cadastre acknowledged that the historical entries had not been fully reflected during digitisation, and the right of first refusal was re-registered on 26 January 2026.

The prosecution must now determine whether the omission was mismanagement or the result of a series of deliberate acts, while its investigation must also extend to the Ministry of Economy and the Albanian Investment Corporation.

The court has also requested a review of the legality of the call for proposals for the “Inspectorates Complex and the new ‘Zyber Hallulli’ Children’s Home”. In particular, it must be clarified why the procedure continued even though the institutions had been informed of the property dispute.

From the split competition result to the contract with MOTUS

The Corporation’s call opened on 15 September 2025. It linked two properties and two different projects in a single operation.

The private investor was to finance the new orphanage campus at the former German Villas and the inspectorates’ offices. In return, it would develop a mixed-use complex on the orphanage’s current site, near “Rruga e Elbasanit”.

All the groups submitted concepts for both areas. But the jury decided that none fully met the competition requirements. For this reason, on 29 January 2026, it split the architectural selection between two proposals.

The group led by Rojkind Arquitectos was selected for the complex of three towers of 20, 25 and 35 storeys. It had been commissioned by MOTUS.

The group led by Taller Hector Barroso, meanwhile, was preferred for the orphanage and inspectorates campus. It had been commissioned by PROGEEN.

However, splitting the architectural projects did not automatically determine which company would be awarded the development. The winning financial offer was determined by the percentage of the mixed-use complex’s floor area that the companies offered the Corporation.

MOTUS offered 46% of the total floor area above and below ground. PROGEEN offered 45.5%, just 0.5 percentage points less.

As a result, MOTUS ranked first and took on the entire operation. This includes financing the two public buildings and developing the complex on the orphanage’s current site.

MOTUS is wholly owned by entrepreneur Idajet Ismailaj. The company also owns 57% of the FINMAN group and 100% of Motus Construction.

Through FINMAN, the group is linked to the company Alb-Star, which built and currently manages the “Arena Kombëtare” stadium and the 26-storey tower beside it.

PROGEEN, meanwhile, is owned and managed by Genc Kuçuku, an entrepreneur known for apartment developments in Tirana who has participated in several other calls by the Corporation.

KISH announced the signing of the contract with MOTUS on 4 June 2026, just three days after the ruling in which the court called for the case to be returned for investigation. It is unclear whether the Corporation had been formally notified of the ruling before signing the contract, but to date there has been no announcement on this point.

It should be stressed that the court ruling does not annul the competition, the contract with MOTUS or the winning projects, nor does it order the procedure to be suspended.

The contract nevertheless now concerns a property whose cadastral history and administration must be subject to a criminal investigation.

The prosecution must determine whether the disappearance of the right of first refusal was an administrative error or a deliberate act. It must also verify the legality of the Ministry and the Corporation continuing their procedures.

For now, there is no indication that specific individuals have been questioned or formally placed under investigation. The court has ruled only that the prosecution could not dismiss the complaint without carrying out these checks.

Nevertheless, the case is no longer simply a dispute between owners and public institutions, since the investigations appear likely to include the investors as well.

The right of first refusal versus development

The documents also expose a broader contradiction: the state recognises and protects former owners’ rights by law, while new procedures for developing state property may make exercising them practically impossible.

Albanian legislation, particularly law no. 133/2015 on the treatment of property and the completion of the property compensation process, protects this legal position. But the Corporation’s project is not presented as a conventional privatisation of the former German Villas. 

It envisages developing the property through an agreement with a private investor, while the buildings over which the right of first refusal has been registered are to be demolished to make way for the new campus. 

This creates an issue requiring a specific legal interpretation: if the buildings disappear before they are privatised, what can the former owners then exercise their right of first refusal over?

The case exposes a problem that goes beyond the Sureli family and beyond a possible “error” at the Cadastre. On one hand, the state has built a legal system that recognises the harm caused by the communist regime, guarantees compensation and preserves former owners’ rights. 

On the other, law no. 71/2019 on the Albanian Investment Corporation gives the Corporation broad powers to transfer, administer and develop state properties with private partners.

It is precisely at the intersection of these two legal frameworks that the problem exposed by the Sureli family’s case emerges: do the mechanisms for developing state properties contain sufficient safeguards to ensure that previously recognised property rights do not remain merely formal or become practically impossible to exercise?