TIRANA, April 28 – The European Court for Human Rights has ruled the Albanian state must pay 15,600 euros in damages to a business owner convicted for his role in the massive Gerdec explosion at a munitions processing operation.
The Strasbourg court ruled Dritan Delijorgji’s rights were infringed when he was kept in detention beyond legally allowed limits, several local media reported.
Delijorgji is the owner of Albademil, the company in charge at Gerdec, where an explosion in 2008 killed 26 people, injured hundreds more and destroyed thousands of houses and businesses in the surrounding area.
The international court noted that Delijorgji’s request for faster judgment was delayed and Albanian courts kept him in detention beyond reasonable limits.
A Tirana court found Delijorgji guilty and sent him to prison. He served some time, and is now a free man.
Twenty nine people, including officials, were convicted in the case, with the highest penalty being 18 years in prison.
Many convictions were overturned in appeals courts, and only a few of the people charged served time in prison.
The massive explosion at Gerdec ripped through a former army barracks used as a collection point for old Chinese and Soviet-made shells that a local company was demilitarizing to extract the metal.
Prosecutors said the explosion occurred after Delijorgji’s workers, many of them untrained and low-paid women and children, tried to weld several metal carriages used to transport heavy munitions, close to containers filled with explosives.
