Court decision on protesters/ DP MP: Arrests were illegal, police will be held accountable for actions

2026-01-27 15:47:00, Aktualitet CNA

Court decision on protesters/ DP MP: Arrests were illegal, police will be held

The Tirana Court has relaxed the security measures for the 19 protesters arrested in the January 24 protest in front of the Prime Minister's Office. The court imposed the security measure "compulsory appearance" on them, overturning the more severe measures previously requested.

Regarding the decision, MP Klevis Balliu said in a statement to the media that the arrest of the protesters was illegal, while stating that the police will be held accountable for their actions.

"The intolerable, criminal, terrorist arrest of a 10-year-old boy who was dragged away by 5 Ilir Proda's drug police, which is a shame for the State Police and the entire state, definitively proved that these people, seized by the fear that has plagued them, no longer know what to do, so much so that they even accompanied and arrested one of their own people, who was part of the SP structures. Because these people, under the fear of the sovereign, no longer look each other in the eye. I guarantee that for the violence and the gas thrown on the streets of Tirana, they will bear direct responsibility," declared Balliu.

Outside the court, lawyer Eda Grimci also spoke, saying that there was no evidence that proved the criminal actions. She added that the evidence obtained had no connection to the arrested persons.

"After we got acquainted with the files, we saw that there was no evidence against them. It was evidence taken from film footage, which had nothing to do with the arrested. But even this was only for 5 cases, for 14 other cases there was neither film footage nor photos, but there was only a service report where in one case 4 police officers signed and in one case 7 people and these were considered as evidence. But these cannot be considered as such, since in a decision of the Court of Human Rights against Albania, it has specified that the measures should not exceed the fact and in no case can it be considered legal, and 'prison arrest' cannot be requested when there is no evidence that substantiates the concrete action. It was about suspicions", said the lawyer. /CNA