TIRANA, June 30 – Police have arrested two suspects they believe were the leaders of the armed group that fatally shot one policeman and wounded two others in Lazarat last week.
The two teenage brothers, Arbjon and Alban Aliko, surrendered after 500 police officer surrounded their hiding place the evening of June 27.
Using the brothers’ father as a negotiator, police arrested them at a decommissioned army base 10 kilometers from Lazarat, the village 200 kilometers south of Tirana where the policeman was killed on June 24.
Police said that early investigations suggest the brothers, aged 18 and 20, had spent the last six months planning to attack police in Lazarat. About 15 other young men, aged between 17 to 21, were also involved in the plan, according to the police investigation.
Eight people so far have been accused and detained in both the policeman’s killing and for illegal weapons possession.
The group was very well-armed and their goal was to take control of the village and make it a safe haven for drug production and trafficking, police said.
Police added the armed gang was hoping to scare off police into leaving the village, so locals could resume planting marijuana, a multimillion-dollar business in Lazarat which was halted through a massive police operation last year.
Instead, the killing led to another massive police crackdown. Hundreds of Albanian police continue to keep the village under control after the shooting. Police also went house to house looking for suspects.
Dozens of people were being questioned by prosecutors looking for evidence in the case and seeking to uncover a possible criminal network in the village.
Lazarat came to prominence last year after a five-day police siege in which special police forces with armored personnel carriers came under intense fire from automatic weapons and rocket launchers.
The police raid last year destroyed 102 tons of marijuana and 530,000 marijuana plants with an estimated value of more than half the country’s annual GDP.
Police are determined to continue the operation “until the last suspect was detained.”
The slain police officer, Ibrahim Basha, was buried with full honors the Nation’s Fallen Cemetery earlier this week, an honor generally reserved for those who fall in the line of duty in the armed forces.
Basha was a veteran of the Albania’s elite commando army unit and had served in both Afghanistan and Iraq with NATO troops. He had been with the special police forces for six months when he died.
