TIRANA, Sept. 15 – An American executive who works for Omnix Albania, a company about to build a luxury beach resort in Albania, was beaten earlier this week by three men in what police described as a premeditated attack.
Faadi Mitri, 55, a Lebanon-born American citizen, was traveling with his wife and children, when a vehicle purposely crashed with his car near the airport.
The suspects exited the vehicle and attacked Mitri and his driver using a baseball bat, breaking one of Mitri’s legs.
Two days later police said they had identified the suspects, arrested one and were looking for the other two.
Albanian media reported the attack was due to a property dispute between the company and local residents.
Police and an ambulance were called to the scene. Officers collected as evidence some photographs that Mitri took of the license plates of the car used by the suspects who had already left the site.
Mitri told police that the attack was premeditated and was related to the investment that his company was carrying out in the Gjiri i Lalzit area.
Police said the executive told authorities that he had been threatened to “leave Albania at once and interrupt all work at the resort.”
Prosecutors are investigating several leads, but they are taking into account a protest that occurred five years ago when the construction of the resort had just begun.
Police have detained 12 men, including some residents of the coastal village Gjiri i Lalzit who five years ago were engaged in violent protests against Omnix Albania.
The company that belongs to several billionaire investors from Qatar has recently received a construction permit to build a 180-million-euro resort in the coast.
The Qatari investors had already received a development permit in May 2013 by the previous Democratic Party-led administration.
