The Albanian Foreign Ministry summoned the Greek ambassador for a second time in three days, demanding clear condemnation of anti-Albanian incidents in Greece sparked by the shooting of a Greek-Albanian.
Albania lodged a new protest with the Greek ambassador to Tirana on Wednesday following several incidents in Greece sparked by the killing of an ethnic Greek gunman by Albanian police at the weekend.
Albania’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said it summoned Greek ambassador Eleni Surani to raise concern about a bomb alarm near the Albanian embassy in Athens, an arson attack on an Albanian business in the Greek capital and the burning of an Albanian flag during a protest near the Greek parliament on Tuesday evening.
“We requested from the ambassador Greek authorities condemn these grave acts that damage the climate of friendship between neighbours,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The ministry also demands that the Greek authorities take measures to protect the life and the property of Albanians living in Greece,” it added.
Albanian police said Kostandinos Kacifa, 35, a citizen of Albania and Greece, was shot dead by officers who were attempting to arrest him after he fired on a police patrol in the ethnic Greek-populated village of Bularat in south Albania on Sunday.
The incident happened during celebrations in the village to mark ‘Oxi Day’, a Greek national holiday.
On Sunday evening, the Greek Foreign Ministry called the killing “unacceptable” while Albania described Greece’s rhetoric as inflammatory.
In the days that followed, family members of the victim and political representatives of the Greek minority in Albania called for independent investigation and criticised the police intervention as “unprofessional”.
On Tuesday evening, the body of the victim was transferred to the Albanian Forensic Institute in Tirana where a post-mortem will be carried out.
Greek media reported that the Greek embassy in Tirana has lodged a formal request to the Albanian General Prosecutor’s Office to allow a Greek coroner to participate in the post-mortem.
But a spokesperson from the General Prosecutor’s Office told BIRN no such request had been received.
The Greek embassy did not respond to emailed requests for comments or to telephone calls.
Meanwhile on Monday evening, fans of Albania’s Partizani football team held up a banner with the slogan “1 Greek Less, 1 Bastard Less” during a league match against Skenderbeu FC.
The Albanian Football Federation criticised what it called the “racist slogan” and immediately summoned its ethics committee, which banned Partizani fans from the team’s next two matches.
The Greek minority in Albania numbers about 24,000 and is concentrated mostly along the border with Greece.
About 600,000 Albanians have emigrated to Greece over the last three decades.
Some have been targeted by hate crimes over the years. In 2004, a 20-year-old Albanian was killed when celebrating an Albanian football victory over Greece./BIRN
