The political climate has become tenser after the attack that took place yesterday in the electoral offices of the Democratic Party in Kavaja, where Bledar Okshtuni was wounded with a firearm by Ndriçim Jonuzi. Immediately after the attack, the leader of the opposition Lulzim Basha went to Kavaja, and declared that “Kavaja has faced a serious event, an assassination attempt against the DP, against the Alliance for Change, by a Prime Minister who knows that on Sunday will lose, and Kavaja and Albania will win.” President Meta also travelled to Kavaja, and declared that the Prime Minister did not have any respect for the constitution, and urged him to go to SPAK.
While initially, Prime Minister Rama reacted by condemning the event, saying that the “politicization of this event is as bad as the event itself,” today Rama wrote on Twitter that the attacker, Ndriçim Jonuzi (who holds also the surname Tahiri), is in fact a DP militant, which politicized even further the episode. “It’s quite obvious that the episode in Kavaja has no political motif! The author has nothing to do with the SP, actually, he is a militant of the DP! The DP has no guilt about the episode, but for the scandalous politicization!” wrote Rama on Twitter.
The comment was made after Jonuzi, who is still wanted by the police, published a video in which he admitted being the author of the attack, and claimed that he didn’t do it for political reasons. Jonuzi in the video added also that he had been a longtime supporter of the DP, but lately is no longer interested in politics. In the video, Jonuzi tried to justify his attack by saying that it was a reaction after seeing two supporters of the DP, including Okshtuni, blocking the street to an old woman. Although he had asked them to leave, according to Jonuzi they did not respond positively to the request. Jonuzi said also that the episode of the knife attack that had occurred a couple of hours earlier in Tirana, had left an emotional mark on him. Nevertheless, he said that he was “not proud of what he did.”
The Democratic Party reacted again after the claims of Rama and Jonuzi by publishing a photo, according to which they could prove that Jonuzi was in fact a supporter of the SP, linked to high ranking members of the party. “All the facts prove that yesterday’s attackers are his (Rama) people and they acted on purpose. This is a criminal attack on our democracy,” said the statement of the DP. In the photo published by the DP, the attacker Jonuzi is seated at a table with the actual socialist Mayor of Kavaja Redjan Krali, the head of the municipal police in Kavaja Markel Shtylla, and Dorian Troplini, an employee of Kavaja municipality. Both Shtylla and Troplini are also wanted by the police since they were present in yesterday’s attack. Present in the table was among others also Elton Elezi, the head of the Socialist Party in Kavaja.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Kavaja Krali considered the attack a banal episode, which was not politically motivated. He distanced himself from the attacker, saying that the photo published by the DP was taken from a normal dinner, after an invitation from Shtylla. “I know Jonuzi only as a citizen of Kavaja, as I do know all the others,” said Krali. The mayor claimed that the head of the municipal police of Kavaja, according to his information was not involved in the attack. “In any case, the institutions will be the one to decide about this,” said Krali. The mayor denied also the rumours that Jonuzi had previously won tenders from the municipality of Kavaja.
