Opposition party Vetevendosje (LVV) commemorated the fourth anniversary of their activist Astrit Dehari’s death. He died while in custody in a detention center in Prizren, Kosovo.
LVV paid homage to Dehari’s grave on Thursday, and called for an independent investigation into his death.
“Astrit Dehari was detained, without an indictment, without a trial, without a sentence ruling, and for 68 days he was not questioned at all while in prison. However, he was strangled in cell A-3 of Prizren prison. Astrit has been a crime since the day he was arrested until he was killed, here, four years ago,” LVV leader Albin Kurti wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
He accused the Kosovo authorities of having covered the crime since the moment Dehari was found dead. Kurti accused the Prizren Chief of Police Nexhmi Krasniqi of falsely claiming in public that Dehari had died from an overdose of medicine, as well as Chief Prosecutor Sylë Hoxha for falsely claiming that the activist had committed suicide.
Kurti said that independent tests later showed that Deahari had not taken any medicine, and excluded suicide as a potential cause for his death.
“As we wait for light to be shed upon this crime, Astrit sheds light on us through his life and work. Tonight, we light a candle in our windows or balconies for his soul and our memory,” Kurti concluded.
In 2016, Astrit Dehari and five other LVV activists were detained on suspicion of “terrorist acts” for having allegedly attacked the parliament building with an RPG.
On November 5, 2016, Dehari, 26, was found dead in his cell while in custody in Prizren, 68 days after his detention. Authorities declared his death self-inflicted asphyxiation using a bottle.
The University Center of Legal Medicine, Lausanne, Switzerland, found that suicide was not highly probable and that another person’s intervention leading to Dehari’s death should be taken into account. Kosovo authorities kept the report hidden and falsified its date.
The family lawyer maintains that Astrit was murdered due to his political convictions, and authorities tried to cover the traces.
In 2018, the appeals court freed all activists and ordered a retrial.
In 2020, President Hashim Thaci reduced the sentence of a murder convict who testified in the case relating Dehari’s death in custody. The opposition LVV claimed his testimony had changed in time, and raised suspicions on the decision, demanding the president to release in full the related documents.
LVV MP Rexhep Selimi also paid homage to the activist’s grave on Thursday before departing to The Hague to face war crime charges by the Kosovo special court there.
