Courts hands out prison terms for Butrint tragedy

SARANDA, Nov. 3 – The Saranda district court has sentenced to prison terms four people found guilty of the tragedy at Butrint Lake two years ago.
Five persons died, including a three-month baby, while trying to illegally cross into Greece in a boat.
The court sentenced Hyqmet Sollaku to 21 years imprisonment, Dashamir Mane with 17 years imprisonment, Brahim Madhi with 16 years imprisonment and Albert Gega with five years imprisonment. All were also fined with 8 million leks each.
Madhi and Gega were sentenced in absentia as they are still at large since the tragedy happened.
In a smuggling effort five persons sunk, including a mother and her baby, after a boat ferrying 13 would-be Albanian migrants capsized.
The smugglers were using the lagoon to avoid a police checkpoint and ferry the migrants cross the border into Greece.
Albania, Europe’s second poorest country, has banned the use of speedboats to curb the trafficking of people and drugs across the Adriatic to Italy. That was one of the few, or rare cases they used the Butrint Lake to go to neighboring Greece.
Poor Albanians seeking a better life abroad have used overland routes to Greece.