PM’s guards find explosives under car of visiting local government official

TIRANA, Dec. 13 – Police said they have found an explosive device under the car of a senior official as it entered the compound of the office of Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama.
Security officials called in bomb disposal officers, who found 200 grams of C4 explosive, two detonators and a cell phone attached under the car of Besnik Dervishi, the Socialist regional prefect of the southwestern Vlora County.
The device was removed and destroyed in a nearby controlled blast, police said.
Rama was not at the office when the incident occurred. Police gave no other details, but said an investigation was under way and that additional security had been provided for Dervishi and members of his family.
Politics in once staunchly communist Albania has been marred by decades of volatile debate and violence, while public officials have also been targeted by criminal gangs.
In 2011, a judge was killed in Vlora when a bomb exploded under his moving car. There was no claim of responsibility for that attack and police made no arrests.
Rama took over as prime minister in September after a landslide win for the Socialists in June elections.
The incident sparked criticism from the conservative opposition, which hinted that the Socialists themselves could have been behind the incident. They described it as a “spectacle designed to distract public attention from the premier’s plans to raise taxes and put pressure on businesses.”
Dervishi is prefect in Vlore, where the next day authorities demolished a tourism residence building. There were no links made between the car bomb threat and the destroyed building.
Dervishi said that he feared the car bomb threat was linked to his public post.
In a meeting held in Saranda the next day, Prime Minister Edi Rama said they were determined to continue the destruction of all illegal construction along the seaside and beyond.
Vlora’s destruction was the third of the kind from the new government that came to power in mid-September.