TIRANA, Albania — 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. 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 …
TIRANA, Albania — Albania’s Supreme Court on Friday upheld a verdict of the lower courts keeping a former elected mayor from the country’s Greek minority in prison after he was convicted of buying votes. A Supreme Court statement said that it upheld the verdicts of the court of first instance and the court of appeal which had sentenced Freddie Beleris, …
TIRANA, Albania — Albanian election authorities on Friday stripped an ethnic Greek minority mayor of his post after he was imprisoned on charges of vote-buying in municipal elections last year. In response to Friday’s decision, the Greek foreign ministry issued a statement saying Beleris’ case “raises several questions concerning fundamental principles of the rule of law” in Albania. Beleris belongs …
TIRANA, Albania — Germany’s foreign minister on Friday expressed the European Union’s deep concerns following the recent shootout between masked Serb gunmen and Kosovo police that left four people dead and sent tensions soaring in the region. Annalena Baerbock was in Tirana, Albania at a foreign ministers’ meeting ahead of the Oct. 16 summit on the Berlin Process, an initiative …