(2 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Himara, Albania – 2 September 2024
1. Fredis Beleris meets with his fellow villagers
2. Fireworks to celebrate Beleris’ release on probation
3. Beleris’ supporters gathered in Himara
4. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Fredis Beleris, former Himara mayor and European lawmaker for Greece:
“The welcome from my fellow villagers was very emotional for me. The 16-month vicissitude is over. But my fight with the justice is not over. I will turn to all levels of the Albanian justice and at the end, if I don’t find my right, I will also turn to the International Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. It was an injustice from the Albanian government. It was an injustice that should not have occurred to an elected person and Albania should leave behind the club of those countries that have problems with elections, that have problems with justice, with the rule of law.”
5. Beleris with Greek Ambassador in Tirana Konstantina Kamitsi and leader of the Human Rights Union Party of the ethnic Greek minority in Albania Vangjel Dule
6. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Fredis Beleris, former Himara mayor and European lawmaker for Greece:
“As you may know I am an elected Euro-lawmaker. I will continue my fight to help the people and achieve what I intended as Himara’s mayor from a more important post. Of course, from now on I will be most of the time out of Albania, far from Himara. I will be between Brussels and Athens, where my voters are and the state I represent is.”
7. Beleris takes to the floor to speak to his supporters
STORYLINE:
A former ethnic Greek mayor of an Albanian town, whose imprisonment on vote-buying charges has strained Albanian-Greek ties, has been released on probation, his office and a lawyer said Monday.
Fredis Beleris was freed after a court in Fier, 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital, Tirana, where he was serving a two-year sentence, accepted his request for early release, lawyer Eugen Gjyzari said.
Scores of supporters rallied to celebrate his freedom in his hometown of Hiamara.
They gathered in front of the office of the Democratic Union of the Greek Minority, known as Omonoia, a social, political and cultural organization that promotes the rights for the Greek minority in Albania.
Beleris, 51, was arrested two days before the May 14, 2023, municipal elections in Himara, a town populated by ethnic Greeks on what has been dubbed the Albanian Riviera, a coastal region with burgeoning tourist development that has been rife with property disputes.
He was charged and convicted of offering about 40,000 Albanian leks (360 euros, $390) to buy eight votes.
The case against Beleris has strained relations between Tirana and Athens, with Greece threatening to hold up Albania’s bid to join the European Union.
Beleris and Athens have claimed his conviction was politically motivated.
Albanian officials strongly rejected those claims, citing the independence of the judiciary.
In June, Beleris, a dual Albanian-Greek national, was elected to the European Parliament with Greece’s governing conservative party, and was given a five-day leave from prison to attend the parliament’s opening session in Strasbourg a month later.
Writing on his Facebook page, Beleris thanked Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for including him on his party’s ballot, which he said “changed the course of my history.”
Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis called Beleris’ release “certainly a positive development.”
AP video by Vlasov Sulaj
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