Kosovo’s Special Prosecution on Tuesday charged Rozeta Hajdari, acting Minister of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade, with abuse of office and with disclosure of state secrets related to the alleged misuse of state reserves in 2022, which the prosecution claims cost the state budget 2 million euros.

Hajdari announced the indictment on Facebook, saying she will make a statement when she has read the full indictment. However, allies have described the charges as politically motivated.

The prosecution questioned Hajdari on April 15, 2024 and again on July 31, 2025. Both times she chose to remain silent as the case is classified as a state secret.

But the prosecution says the government decision to classify the process of purchasing state reserves as a state secret is illegal and is based on a law no longer in force.

“Procurement activity for the purchase of state reserves must necessarily be carried out through open procurement procedures and is not considered a state secret, according to the Law on State Reserves of Goods,” the file, seen by BIRN, said.

“The defendant’s claims about not giving a statement, based on an illegal and invalid decision of the government, are unfounded in law and facts. This claim is only an attempt by the defendant to avoid criminal liability and confront the evidence presented by the prosecution,” the indictment said.

Over the summer of 2023, allegations arose that 600,000 euros from state reserves was spent on buying wheat, oil and sugar that cannot be accounted for. Two Ministry of Trade officials and a private businessman were arrested but released two weeks later without charges. They were arrested on August 18, 2023, and freed on August 31.

The three are now charged alongside the minister. Ministry officials Irfan Lipovica and Hafiz Gara are accused of abuse of office and businessman Ridvan Muharremi with aiding the abuse.

The prosecution accuses Muharremi of helping Lipovica and Gara to negotiate the supply of state reserves by proposing and securing foreign companies, and of being involved without authorization in negotiating the terms of the contracts.

The indictment claims Muharremi mediated between Lipovica and the companies “Yafe Turizm Insaat Sanayi ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi” based in Bursa, Turkey, for the supply of wheat, and with “Xanto SP” based in Gdynia, Poland, for the supply of sunflower oil and sugar.

The prosecution claims that Gara, then director of the state reserves department in the ministry, on February 25, 2022, asked Lipovica, then deputy secretary of the ministry, to exclude regular procurement procedures in the purchase of state reserves, to avoid fair competition.

It says Lipovica allowed the open public procurement procedure to buy state reserves to be bypassed, in violation of the law. On the same day, Lipovica allegedly sought government permission to exclude regular procurement procedures and classify them as “secret”, in order to avoid competition and conceal the violation of the law.

After the government’s decision, he decided to form a commission to negotiate the contracts, bypassing public procurement rules.

The prosecution also charges the defendants with unauthorized disclosure of official secrets. This is because, though aware that the location of the state reserves is a state secret, they provided this information to the other defendant in the case.

The prosecution has called for acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti to testify in court. Kurti was called in earlier for questioning by the prosecution but did not attend. He was fined twice for failing to appear. He has accused the prosecution of siding with the opposition.

Former Justice Minister and deputy speaker from Kurti’s Vetevendosje, party, Albulena Haxhiu, on Tuesday claimed the indictment of  Hajdari is politically motivated.

“The indictment against her proves this. Minister Hajdari is neither corrupted nor has she ever abused her official position …  The minister has done everything in her power to protect the country’s interest and to make sure that Kosovo has state reserves …. It is clear that there is a tendency to stain her image,” she said.

But Vlora Citaku, MP from the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, alleged that Kurti was the real decision-maker in the matter.

“Rozeta, as well as all her colleagues in the Kurti 2 government, have not made a single step without the knowledge and approval of A.K. [Kurti]. It was clear to everyone that A.K. did not have ministers with full mandate- and decision-making authority. He had assistants – executors of his orders,” she wrote on Facebook.

Doarsa Kica-Xhelili, MP from the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, agreed. “The indictment should not include only Rozeta Hajdari because she only carried out the orders of her superior, Kurti,” she wrote on Facebook.