Observance of the Law in Albania is the demand of Prime Minister Edi Rama to Greek officials, who have protested against the arrest of Fredi Beleri, the elected mayor of Municipality of Himara.

The head of the Albanian government has responded to Greece’s claims on the ‘Beleri case’ and their accusations of violations of human rights and property rights, by considering them not based on concrete facts.

According to Rama, the issue of the properties of the Greek minorities does not differ from the overall inherited problem of Albania with the properties of all citizens, problems that, as he points out, will be dealt with continuously.

“In these terms and with the conviction also on “the connection of this issue with the general aspect of fundamental rights or the pending issue of Greek minority properties in the area of ​​the municipality in question, and with accusations of violation of their borders by the state”, as written in the letter of Mr. Schinas, a protest took place yesterday organized by Greek politicians in the center of Himara! (As a matter of fact, this conviction of the Greek friends is not based on even a single concrete fact, which could prove that in Albania there is really a specific problem of rights or property for the Greek minority, which differs from the overall inherited problem of Albania with the properties of all Albanian citizens, an issue which we have treated and will continuity to treat with respect, with patience and with the language of facts with official Athens)”, writes Rama.

Focusing on the presence of the head of the Municipality of Athens and that of Thessaloniki at the protest held yesterday (August 14) in Himara for the release of Beleri, Rama writes that such a case, when the elected officials of a democratic state organize a protest in another democratic state, against the authorities of this state, it has never happened before.

Albanian Prime Minister emphasizes that the Greek nationality cannot provide for an Albanian citizen who is accused by SPAK (The Special Prosecutior’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime), a different status from other Albanians arrested with the same charges and who are today in custody.

“But who can and how can today be released from prison an Albanian citizen of Greek nationality, who, as a mayoral candidate, is accused by the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption of Organized Crime (SPAK), to have committed the crime of buying votes – for which the Crime Code of Albania is clear and drastic – while according to the unchanged decision in the three Court degrees, he cannot leave the detention until the end of the judicial process against him?!

Does the Greek nationality give the Albanian citizen accused by SPAK and kept in custody by the country’s courts, a different status from 48 other Albanian citizens with Albanian nationality, including several mayors from my [political] party, who are currently detained under the same body’s charges, with identical decisions of the same the court?!” ends the Prime Minister’s  rhetorical question.

While considering the neighboring country’s reactions on Beleri case a “surreal show” and politicization of an Albanian Justice case, Rama expresses regret that one such a case, which is being handled by the Judiciary on the accusation of electoral crime, has been presented by Greece as a case of the Greek minority rights.

“But I cannot hide the great regret in the face of the surreal appearance of the intervention of the Greek side in an Albanina Justice case, to the point that the statements from Athens and the attempts of our Greek friends in Brussels, to present this case, treated until at present by the Justice as an electoral crime accusation, as a matter of the Greek minority rights, get escalated by a protest of this nature, unparalleled in the history of Europe – at least to my knowledge!”, writes Rama among others.

/a.p./