Shocking crime draws wide condemnation and leads to political debate on gun laws and security in schools
TIRANA, Dec. 4 – In a case that drew massive condemnation in Albania, a teenager was shot dead with an automatic weapon Wednesday by a classmate while attending class in a in a high school near the port city of Durres.
A student of Beqir Cela High School in Shkozet, 20 kilometers west of capital Tirana, entered a class and shot dead a 17-year-old classmate.
Police said later that day they had arrested a 15-year-old boy who is accused of allegedly killing his classmate. Police said the alleged shooter’s family had assisted them in convincing the young man to hand himself over to police in nearby Durres.
Education Minister Lindita Nikolli said that “the aggressor was a student and he killed his peer.”
The case has created a shock in Albania society, where there had been no school shootings like this in recent memory. Despite many leftover weapons from the anarchy of 1997 and continuing gun violence, Albania has tight gun control laws and weapons cannot be held without a permit.
The prime minister told parliament his government would look to further tighten the gun laws and increase punishments in the wake of the Shkozet incident.
Prime Minister Edi Rama urged a full probe “so that all necessary measures are taken not to let such events be repeated.”
Police gave no reasons or causes for the incident, but local media report that the alleged shooter had told law enforcement after being arrested that he had been bullied in school. The alleged shooter is reported to have told police he was defending his sister’s honor.Both boys come from a new community in the Durres outskirts with inhabitants originally from a rural and mountainous part of Albania. Police and family members said the two students had been quarreling before. Photos taken in their social media networks by local media show the boys posing what appear to be real guns.
The school is one of the few in Albania entirely dedicated to lead into a trades’ career, and the shooting happened in a garage that serves to train the students to become car mechanics.
Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri said they were planning “radical measures” for the security at the education public institutions.
He also guaranteed all parents for the safety of their children at schools.
Opposition politicians accused the government of being unable to guarantee safety in schools.
Police say the alleged shooter told them the weapon used in the shooting was leftover from the anarchy that engulfed the country in 1997, when mobs of people broke into army depots across Albania. It was hidden under his closes when he entered the class.
