The Albanian Intelligence Service will no longer be headed by Helidon Bendo, a position he held since November 2018.
It was the Prime Minister Edi Rama who announced that Helidon Bendo had submitted his resignation and that after his post-graduate studies in the USA, he will be his advisor for the reform of the security institutions.
Top Channel journalist Muhamed Veliu builds the entire chronology of the developments in SHISH of the last few days that led to the departure of Helidon Bedo with the consent of Prime Minister Edi Rama and the dismissal decree approved by President Bajram Begaj.
A few months ago it was reported that Helidon Bendo had gone to the US for a 12-month training. In the conditions where SHISH had been without a deputy director for many years, from August 31, 2022, Olian Kanushi, former adviser to Prime Minister Edi Rama, was appointed to this position.
Kanushi's arrival in SHISH hastened the departure of chairman Bendo. Tch learns that Helidon Bendo interrupted the one-year course in the USA and has urgently returned to Tirana during the month of December.
All this because his spokesman, Olian Kanushi, was gradually taking over the reins of SHISH's direction, even though Bendo was still in office, although he had gone for specialization in the USA.
Regarding the tense situation of the last few days between Bendo and Kanushi, a source in SHISH made this comment to the journalist Muhamed Veliu.
"A few days ago, director Helidon Bendo arrived at the office, surprising everyone. Only a few people close to him knew. He then went to Oljan Kanushi's office where they had a verbal confrontation. In recent months in SHISH there have been many movements of several directors across Albania. Some with strong ties to Helidon Bendon, have started to resign", said a source from SHISH.
The same source estimates that the current situation in SHISH, on the one hand, with Olian Kanushi, who is making directorial moves that were unsuccessfully tried to be stopped by Helidon Bendo, is chaotic. The moves at SHISH began after the structure of the Intelligence Service was compromised by an attack by Iranian hackers who managed to access the secret service's servers and expose all personnel.
In a comment about this attack, Prime Minister Rama described SHISH as an outdated structure.
With the appointment of the Prime Minister's advisor at the head of SHISH, there was a strong change in the management structures that preceded the dismissal of Helidon Bendo by decree of President Begaj.