Muslim community sold land to overcome financial difficulties, says mufti

TIRANA, May 21 – Selim Muca, head of the Albanian Islamic Community, said that his group sold a much disputed plot of land in central Tirana due to the financial and economic difficulties the community had to cope with.
Last month a group of Muslim believers started a hunger strike to protest the sale of the land next to Tirana’s main Skanderbeg Square, accusing Muca of selling the land so he might profit personally.
Muca said that the community has many properties and other real estate which the government should return to them. He said the community claimed 1.6 million square meters of land, 40 million square meters of pasture and forest and 25,000 olive trees.
Muca said that maintaining hundreds of mosques in the country and their personnel needed some 2.6 million Euros that could not be secured with the existing funding they had.