TIRANA, June 12 (Reuters) – Former Albanian leader Sali Berisha, now the head of the main opposition party, said on Friday that the United States has lifted a travel ban placed on him in 2021.
The U.S. State Department had barred Berisha – a former president and prime minister who steered the Balkan country after the fall of communism in the early 1990s – and his immediate family from entering the country, saying he had been involved in “corrupt acts” including misappropriation of public funds and using his power to enrich relatives.
“As of yesterday, after a thorough review of my case by the State Department, my family and I are no longer deprived of the possibility of travel to the United States,” Berisha, 81, said on Facebook.
“An unfair decision of the previous U.S. administration against me and my family was corrected,” the leader of the opposition Democratic Party said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told Reuters the department “issued waivers for several 7031(c) designations imposed under the previous administration because granting the waivers serves a compelling national interest.”
The spokesperson did not name the persons who were granted the waivers. The decision comes amid mass protests in Albania against the development of a luxury resort planned by U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Additional reporting by Simow Lewis in Wasthington; Writing by Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Tom Hogue)
