Police quickly identify and arrest suspects but political uproar followed after photos of one of the suspects emerged with the country’s top police officials.
TIRANA, Feb. 25 – Dritan Lamaj, a 41-year-old senior police official, was shot dead Sunday evening in Tirana, to become the third high-ranking Albanian police officer to be murdered in the last six months.
Lamaj was shot dead while in his car close to his apartment downtown Tirana. Local media say that Lamaj has had many frictions with businessmen in the Tirana suburb of Kombinat, where he had served as police chief until recently.
A reward of $100,000 set up by police for any information helping the investigation, according to a statement. The murder is related to Lamaj’s work, police said.
During his 18-year long career, Lamaj had held several important positions in the Albanian police force. Until last year he headed the police station of the Kombinat quarter in Tirana, before he was transferred to the force’s general department last November.
Lamaj’s death follows the murder of the police chief in Shijak, Adem Tahiri, in September, and Musa Skura, the head of the serious crime unit in the Mat district in January.
Police paid all the ceremonial last respects to Lamaj and he was given the Nation’s Fallen title, and buried at the national martyrs’ cemetery.
But Lamaj’s death was a loud cry for the security situation in the country. While the government, Prime Minister Sali Berisha and Interior Minister Flamur Noka said that the perpetrators would be taken to the justice, opposition leader and more said that was a sign of the failure of the government to fight crime in the country.
That was also pushed more from the fact that two more murders occurred in Tirana and nearby Elbasan district. Opposition leader Edi Rama blamed the murder on the government.
Lamaj is survived by his wife and teenage daughter.
As the local media reported that the alleged suspects had also threatened to kill his wife and daughter.
Police arrest suspects
A few hours after Lamaj’s death police said they had already arrested who they see as the main suspects. Three Albanians were arrested in neighboring Greece, in Thessaloniki, where they had gone only three hours after the murder, police said.
Police said that the businessman, once close friends with Lamaj, had serious personal frictions with him. They also said there had been other complaints from people saying that Lamaj had abused with them while on duty in Kombinat.
Arben Frroku, the businessman arrested in Thessaloniki, had previously filed charges with Albanian prosecutors, accusing Lamaj of beating him up and abuse of power.
The prosecutors’ office had closed the case, but Lamaj was moved from the post as head of the Kombinat police department to another department in Tirana.
Police also reported that a cache of weapons and also drugs were found at the businessman’s friend’s house in a village near Tirana. They are investigating whether one of them was used in the murder.
At the same time police also found a BMW car that was seen close to the site where Lamaj was shot.
Police work will not be easy to identify the suspects as the authors of the murder. There are testimonies from witnesses that the murderers wore masks. Meanwhile the businessman’s son says his father has an alibi.
Political uproar follows
Despite the fact the police were quick to find and lay charges on the alleged perpetrators, the next day, a photo of one of the accused eating dinner and drinking with some of Albania’s highest police officials emerged, causing uproar in political circles.
Late Wednesday, the local private television station, A1 Report broadcast a picture of the main suspect with four top police officials. A close relative of Lamaj alleged that it was likely the place and time when the suspect had convinced the senior policemen to move Lamaj from the post. All the senior policemen present in the picture denied that they had close contacts or friendship with the suspect and two of them withdrew from the investigation team due to the conflict of interest after the photo broadcast.
The next day, Thursday the case of the murdered policeman was part of the harsh debate between the opposition lawmakers and those of the governing Democratic Party.
The opposition has called for the resignation of Interior Minister Flamur Noka considering him incapable of running the institution.
The main opposition Socialist Party has asked for the dismissal of all the high-ranking police officers in the photo as well.
But the interior minister and the top police official of the country say the photo was taken in back in 2010, and the senior officials were not participating in this particular investigation. As such, the photo does not compromise the police’s ability to do it’s work in this case, they argue.
