Rama burns bridges with Beleri conviction

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s choice to cut ties with Athens was reflected by Tuesday’s ruling of the Special Anti-Corruption Court in Albania sentencing the elected ethnic Greek mayor of Himare, a municipality in southern Albanis, Fredi Beleri, in the first instance, to two years in prison on charges of vote buying.

This development is seen to serve Rama’s goal of not allowing Beleri to be sworn in as mayor until his final conviction.

The decision further complicates Greek-Albanian relations, with Athens underlining that it will closely monitor the case ahead of the trial in the second instance.

The Greek Foreign Ministry has called for a fair trial in the second instance. Beleri was elected mayor in May last year having been arrested on the eve of the polls. The arrest impeded him from being sworn in.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry noted that “the sentence, so that he is not released from prison, prevents the elected mayor from assuming his duties, and keeps the defeated candidate in the mayoralty, despite the explicit court decision months ago that imposed his immediate removal.”

“The selective application of judicial decisions and the discounting of judicial judgments is not consistent with the principles of the rule of law. The Greek government will follow the case closely and looks forward to a fair and objective judgment in the second instance,” it said.

The conviction of Beleri was seen to mirror Rama’s stranglehold on the judiciary given that the judge of the Special Anti-Corruption Court judge had been denounced by international observers.

One of the major conditions Greece has set for Albania’s European Union aspirations is that Beleri be allowed to be sworn in as mayor before the final court decision is made.

Beleri told the court the trial was biased and that it “could have taken place once upon a time but not in a European state in the year 2024, where it is not officially in a dictatorship.”