Albanian court

Greece's Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Wednesday regarding an Albanian court's decision to reject an appeal by Fredi Beleri, an ethnic Greek elected mayor of Himara and more recently in the European Parliament, who will have to remain in prison until October.

A special appeals court in Albania has announced that it will made a final decision on June 25 in the case of jailed ethnic Greek politician Fredi Beleri, who was elected to the European Parliament as a candidate in Greece for the ruling New Democracy party.

Beleri is appealing a conviction on charges of vote-buying in a local mayoral election a year before.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis contacted the newly elected MEP Freddy Beleri in jail, on Monday, to congratulate him on his election in the European Parliament for his New Democracy party. 

Beleri, who is the elected mayor of Himara, was sentenced to two years in jail after an Albanian court found him guilty of corruption charges.

This week an Albanian court sentenced Fredi Beleri, the imprisoned mayor-elect of Himare, to 2 years in prison. Beleri slammed the trial and the court's decision as a "sham". This case is about much more than one individual, however, touching on deeper issues in Greek-Albanian relations.

Following the Tuesday conviction of ethnic Greek mayor Fredi Beleri in Albania over alleged vote-buying, sources from within the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday expressed their concern over the rule of law in Albania and the objectivity of its justice system.

The conviction by an Albanian court of the elected mayor of Himare "heightens the concerns raised about the objectivity of the process," Greece's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, after an ethnic Greek was sentenced to two years in prison for buying votes.

A mayor from Albania's Greek minority who was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday for buying votes, described the judicial proceedings as a "sham trial."

An Albanian court on Tuesday convicted a mayor from the country's Greek minority to two years in prison for buying votes, a ruling that was expected to raise tensions with neighboring Greece.

The Special Court on Corruption and Organized Crime also handed Pantelis Kokavesis, Beleri's aide, an 18-month suspended sentence.

In October 2021 the prosecutor provocatively declared that Katsifas had…committed suicide, something that even the Albanian court didn’t accept & re-opened the case

The Foreign Ministry released a statement on Monday on the continued detention of the elected mayor of Himara Fredi Beleri, condemning the Albanian court decision to reject his appeal for release.