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Rilindja Demokratike

24 JANAR 1999

Police commissioner of Vlora taken hostage

Speedboat operators kidnap and mistreat the head of the seaside city’s police. The Ministry of the Interior had no information about his fate Interior Minister Xhafaj accuses officials and MPs implicated in the serious incident in Vlora and in the widespread kidnapping in the coastal city Speedboat operators kidnap and mistreat the head of the police of the coastal city. The Ministry of the Interior had no information about his fate Interior Minister Xh[?]faj accuses officials and MPs involved in the serious incident in Vlora and in the widespread kidnapping in the coastal city When the state takes the state hostage! By Edi PALOKA Last night, Albania was almost left in the hands of the speedboat masks. After several hours of their free action, in the city of Vlora and in part of Albania, the police completely disappeared. Reports coming from Vlora said that the police in that city had been crushed and that its chief had been taken hostage and was being tortured. The scenes of this second civil war were the most unimaginable. After kidnapping, mistreating and then leaving the head of the city police unconscious, the speedboat operators had surrounded the house of one of the police station chiefs and threatened him with a gun. The police chief’s colleagues, as our correspondent also reports, had locked themselves in their homes and not only dared not intervene to rescue their chief, but, on the contrary, had turned off their phones and it was unknown where they had hidden. Meanwhile, the city was left without police and all that collapse was in the hands of the speedboat operators. These, after kidnapping and beating the police chief, had set up roadblocks at the entrance to Vlora and did not allow anyone to enter. Late in the evening, uneasy calm was restored by the FNSH, but at least until the moment we were closing this article, the police chief of Vlora continued to be kidnapped. The above episode happened shortly after the government decreed strong measures against trafficking in human beings and one day after the chairman of the Socialist Party, Fatos Nano, called on all those who have returned to this activity to give it up immediately. Coincidentally, this war between the police and the speedboat operators, among other things, was a war between traffickers who were against Nano and others who were with Nano. A few hours after the Minister of Order, MP Spartak Poçi, declared in Parliament that there was no longer any kind of speedboat operator who made money from trafficking, the chief of the police of Vlora was being kidnapped. It is hard to remember a move more cynical than this declaration made in Parliament, at the same time when wars for control of trafficking were being fought in one corner of the country. Will this episode have consequences, even for the minister who declared in Parliament that he had solved the war with the speedboat traffickers, although the chief of police of the main city in this war was being kidnapped, remains to be seen. Consequently, shortly before closing this article, the police were saying that they had found the police chief, but, according to reports, Mr. Bërdelli was in serious health condition in the Vlora hospital. Naturally, for public security matters, responsibility falls directly on the head of the Government of Albania. From officials of the Ministry of Order it is learned that the Minister of Order and other officials of this ministry have tried to convince politicians that, with delusional statements about control of the situation in Albania, they are convincing the public opinion and foreign opinion that Albania does not need help, that the situation is many times more serious than it is presented. If the Vlora police are also controlled by PS leaders, as officials of the Ministry of Order say, then episodes such as the kidnapping of the chief of police of this city show that the Vlora police and the state structure have come to an end, or, at least, are passing into the hands of people linked to organized crime. This would show that everything happening in Vlora is the result of replacing the police chief of Vlora appointed by the Meksi government, with people who have destroyed what remains of the state. Nevertheless, consequently, last night’s episode was nothing more than a growing war for control of trafficking among people with different political shades, which are proving that the State police have melted into a criminal structure. From what is known, the local police structures in Vlora linked to segments of the PS have decided to declare war on the speedboat operators who have dared to continue this activity in defiance of some unwritten orders and the will of some officials. The next phase of this conflict may be even more serious, but the people of Vlora, the Albanian state and the entire country have little interest in the war between the speedboat operators and the government, because the price of this war is an Albanian state without structure and in a chaos where everyone does as they please. If there is calm, as government propaganda makes noise about, it is based on the force of one part of organized crime to crush another part with government support. Or rather, this is the real situation in this country. Edi PALOKA
Edi Paloka Fatos Nano Spartak Poçi Bërdelli Xh[?]faj Vlorë Shqipëri

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Albina Xhamo

ON PAGE 7

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