Wave of attacks in Gjirokastër. RENEA arrives Patrols in the city; people hunker down at home. Two suspects released An hour after the special forces arrived, another explosion shook the city. A Mercedes is blown up. Commissioner: It belonged to a drug trafficker; it was an act of revenge; we detained the perpetrator An hour after the arrival of special forces from Tirana, more are expected to join the 30 “RENEA” officers today. They will patrol the city. The mayor has sent an open letter to the prime minister and Interior Minister Ceka requesting the arrival of police forces from Tirana. Fear and panic have gripped the people, who are hunkering down at home in the afternoon. The head of the police station, Ilirian Bida, who took up the post in recent weeks, says the perpetrators of the explosions will soon be caught, but refuses to confirm the line of investigation concerning the Hoxha case. “We have nothing definite, so I cannot confirm any possible line of inquiry into the crime; everything will be clarified once the investigation is concluded,” he said. Two people held at the police station, suspected of possibly planting the explosive, have also been released. MP Maksim Hasani tells the Gazette that it was a political attack. Along with Hoxha’s house, several others nearby were also damaged, but the amount of the damage has not yet been calculated. The mayor has sent a letter to the Ministry of Culture requesting funding for their reconstruction. GJIROKASTËR - Fear and panic in the South. Special forces arrive in the city. After the destruction of Enver Hoxha’s house, another explosion has shaken one of the city’s neighborhoods. A Benz car has been blown up. An hour earlier, special forces from Tirana had arrived in the city. requesting the arrival of police forces from Tirana. The municipal leaders are asking Tirana for help. “The situation is dire, send reinforcements” NATIONAL [ ? ] AMSTEL BEER No definite line of investigation after Hoxha’s house was blown up. The Communists: “Political attack.” The police: “The exact version will be known only after the investigation is concluded” (Above) Enver Hoxha, whose house was blown up on Monday evening. (Right) The dictator’s house before the attack

They had made inquiries in March TIRANA - TNT for the fuel-smuggling case from 1995. All the documents proving the involvement of various companies or people in positions of power in the smuggling of “black gold” have been reduced to ashes. In recent days, the Prosecutor General’s Office had asked to review [...] the evidence, to see whether there was any criminal offense that had not been amnestied. But as for responsibility, the findings were negative. The safe was blown up during the unrest in March.

Government gives the go-ahead for cooperation

REPORTAGE / At Tirana psychiatric hospital

USA: THE SITUATION IS EXPLOSIVE Kosovo, the war on the

TIRANA - Is there a duality between the President of the FSFH and the Secretary-General? Although the situation has appeared rosy at least up to now, neither one nor the other has managed to conceal their disagreements. “There was a minor disagreement, which has been resolved,” Starova stated at Monday’s meeting of the Executive Committee, while at his first press conference Papadhopulli stated: “The President is number one in Albanian football.” On page 7

REPORTAGE / At the psychiatric hospital in Tirana TIRANA - Around 90 patients are admitted to the psychiatric hospital in Tirana. They are people who have forgotten what world they live in. And between the misfortune and the happiness of this fact, they waver in forgetting the differences which, beyond the walls of their kingdom, sometimes cause even virtues to be lamented. The doctors, who wander through their cold rooms day and night, bear witness to life in the Hospital for the Mad. Patients in psychiatry several years ago On page 4

From the burial of the Otranto victims TIRANA - The Italian Anti-Mafia is investigating in Tirana. Seven Italian Anti-Mafia prosecutors landed at Rinas yesterday; two of them will examine the cooperation agreement, while the others will investigate the cases assigned to them. Led by Maritati, deputy to Piero Luigi Vinjës, the Anti-Mafia Chief Prosecutor, the group began talks yesterday. The visit of the Albanian prosecutors to Lecce to investigate “Otranto 2” has been definitively scheduled. While Maritati will hold talks, the others will remain in Tirana longer. In the heart of the Albanian metropolis, the Italian Anti-Mafia prosecutors will investigate specific files that have so far been kept secret. This shows that the Italian Mafia has its tentacles in Albania too. On page 3

USA: THE SITUATION IS EXPLOSIVE TIRANA - “The situation in Kosovo is explosive.” The United States’ envoy said there would be no economic cooperation between Belgrade and Washington unless the official policy of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia changed. The fear that the situation is getting out of control is entirely well-founded. Envoy Majls’s attempts to persuade Milosheviç “to change the situation in Kosovo even a little” have produced no results. In recent days, Azem Vllasi, one of the leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, has stated that war in Kosovo is now only days away. UÇK members have begun appearing on the streets; it is now said that they control the territory of Drenica. The sentence imposed on 17 Albanians, who together will serve nearly 200 years in prison, has done nothing to improve an already tense situation. While for many Albanian activists the UÇK is a reality, Foreign Minister Milo does not see it quite that way. In an interview given to the BBC in Zagreb, Milo said: “This reality may be a reality out of time; it may be an outburst of impatience which can be understood from an economic point of view, but from another point of view, the tactical one, it may be an action that is not very appropriate.” Milo categorically denied that there are UÇK troops training in Albania. To him, this is a fabrication by Belgrade. “The Albanian government does not know these people and has no connection with these units. Not simply because it has not wanted to maintain ties, but because these people have not come into Albanian territory.” For Milo, the only “solution” to the national movement issue is dialogue. Many Kosovo Albanians, who are now no longer obeying Ibrahim Rugova’s policy of peaceful resistance, do not seem to think so.

ONE OF THEM SERIOUSLY INJURED Riot in a Greek prison Albanians revolt in Thessaloniki THESSALONIKI - Albanians bloodily clash in the Greek prison in Thessaloniki. The incident occurred last night at around 19:00 and involved two recently imprisoned Albanians. As they were being taken into their cells, they attacked the guards escorting them in an attempt to snatch the keys from their hands, but one of the Greeks fired, seriously wounding one of the Albanians. This immediately triggered a reaction from the other prisoners, who managed to take one guard hostage. The Albanian was rushed to a hospital in Thessaloniki, and his condition is very critical. Diavatas prison is one of the places with a high concentration of Albanian inmates involved in crime. Tensions in the prison remained very high until late in the evening. Greek police authorities arrived there to negotiate with the Albanian prisoners behind bars who had revolted. Police reinforcements were also deployed inside the prison and around it, tightly surrounding the entire area. All the talks concerned the Albanians’ release of the guard they were holding hostage. He had not been released by late evening. The Diavatas prison riot in Thessaloniki is one of the most serious in a series of Albanian protests that have often “taken over” Greek prisons. The most famous were those of 1995, which spread to all the prisons in Greece and also claimed one victim. Then, too, Albanian prisoners, who currently number 2,000, had taken Greek police hostage and threatened them. There have also been numerous escapes using tools and force. One such escape took place recently in the Athens prison, where two Albanians managed to escape after forcing open their cell with tools. Greek police tracked them but failed to catch the escaped Albanians. The Albanians were detained and arrested after they had been caught robbing villas on the outskirts of Thessaloniki.

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