Ask me how much I knew about Albania before coming here and my list would be a short one: Enver Hoxha, bunkers and Sir Norman Wisdom. I have no idea when or how I acquired this extensive body of knowledge, but the association of Norman Wisdom with Albania was by far the most interesting part of it. I remember watching Norman Wisdom's old films on British television. My parents were fans of his wholesome, slapstick comedy, but apparently missed the ideological significance of Pitkin's relationship with Mr Grimsdale. Pitkin, the downtrodden and oppressed representative of the workers, triumphed every time over his capitalist oppressor, Mr Grimsdale - and he got the girl. It took a theorist of Hoxha's insight and profundity to discern this deeper political message. It always seemed tremendously unlikely, yet the story of Sir Norman's fame in Albania has been reported in worthy sources like the BBC , the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph . According to the Guardian, when Wi...
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I have also gotten to know the kids and have seen personally how they loved him so dearly. I personally know that this is a huge mistake on the part of the Albanian judiciary system as they needed to blame someone for what whatever might have happened.
Meanwhile, my hope is that that man will not parish in prison as I know that there is no one who knows how to be kind since everybody is considered guilty!
Anon, I'm not sure that he could be transferred before a verdict is reached. Maybe if he was found guilty they could do something like that.
On the other hand, if the trial and any verdict lacked credibility it would be difficult to justify keeping him in prison in the UK and he would probably have much greater rights of appeal.
Another issue that I see here is that Brown says that he knew of the abuses but he didn't tell the authorities because he was afraid they would shut the place down. I'm sorry but that sounds very phishy to me. While the police in Albania can be a disgrace, I find it appalling (sp?) that he wouldn't turn the guilty person in and let a child molester roam free. It's strange that someone used to the rule of law would completely disregard it while in Albania. There is more to the story here that we are missing.
Why isn't the UK making a fuzz about his arrest? If it were so obvious that he was innocent, I'm sure that there would be enough diplomatic pressure on Albania to release him. The Albanian govt would oblige immediately. We are not talking about Iran here, which will try to make a political statement out of everything. The Albanian govt, or judiciary for that matter, has nothing to gain from jailing Brown if he were innocent. It's not like they will win a trophy for going after foreign child molesters.
As for the difficult prison conditions, that's unfortunate but that's the same for all other prisoners. His situtation is not any worse than that of the other people there. You can't complain that your roommates don't speak English. There is nothing to do to correct that other than arresting someone who knows English and putting him in the same cell as you. After all, prison conditions for someone who's accused of child molestation are hard anywhere in the world. Other prisoners never look lightly on a pedophile and you know the rest.
With that said, I'm not going to claim that Brown is guilty. I just wanted to play devil's advocate and present a different point of view. In the end, whether he's guilty or not, he should go to trial ASAP. No matter what the crime is or how guilty you are, you should be able to go to trial in a timely manner and it's there where you can be found guilty. After all it's "innocent until proven guilty" not "guilty until proven innocent."
However to the best of my knowledge I dont believe David is himself a paedophile though. He has done a lot of good for those children and that should not go un-recognised.
Naci is in an even more unfortunate position, although is often forgotten about when this case is brought to mind. Naci has been caught in the middle of it and I hope he will be released soon.