TIRANA, July 1 – Shkà«lzen Qordja, employee of the Guard of the Republic and driver of Albania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Fatmir Xhafaj, was found dead on Saturday inside a car at the premises of the Guard’s building, in what is so far thought to have been an act of suicide.
The police announcement says Qordja “was found dead, sitting on the driver’s seat. The car was parked in the garage designated for the Ministry of Interior vehicles, and was locked from the inside.”
According to the announcement, “from the examination it results the victim’s head had piercing wounds caused by a firearm, shooting right to left.”
Xhafaj was one of the first to react to the event, saying he feels shocked and that he lost “suddenly a person who was very close to him and someone who was like family to him.”
Through an announcement, Xhafaj added that he had “no comment on the circumstances of his death, because prosecutors and relevant experts are working to clear them out.”
Meanwhile, various sources have made allegations that Qordja did not commit suicide, but was actually killed, potentially due to his links with the Xhafaj family and the governing Socialist Party.
The opposition’s Democratic Party official mouthpiece, the Democratic Rebirth (Rilindja Demokratike) newspaper, has also alleged that a number of Qordja’s friends said they cannot believe he was capable of committing suicide, and have pointed at a potential “mafia execution.”
Regarding the media and political speculation that followed the incident, Xhafaj said that “Qordja was an excellent man, a hard-working and quiet employee who left a huge absence behind him and does not deserve to be spoke ill of in any way.”
