Judge Besnik Hoxha decided yesterday to convict to four civil society activists protesting against the illegal construction work for the playing ground in the Artificial Lake Park – Mimoza Boçari, Ardit Mekshiqi, Orges Zani, and Altin Kuko – to one month imprisonment.
Judge Hoxha, who previously in 2013 in a five-minute session freed the Republican Guards accused of killing 4 protestors on January 21, 2011, accepted the demand of prosecutor Elida Kaçkini (Celami) to convict the protestors for “resisting a police officer.”
The investigation into the “crimes” of the four protestors started on the day of the protest, February 22, 2016. After three entire months of investigation, Kaçkini sent her “final conclusions” to the Court of Tirana, demanding the conviction of the four citizens.
In spite of the existence of clear video evidence of police officer Kristaq Papajorgji slapping Mimoza Boçari in the face and pulling her hair, the prosecutor completely ignored this. Instead, the prosecutor’s “conclusions” describe the police violence against Boçari as “an interaction.” Meanwhile, Boçari slapping the hat from Papjorgji’s head is frames as “actions resisting the police officer, obstructing him from fulfilling his duty.”
During the investigation, Papajorgji apparently had been questioned by the prosecution, but the entire event in which he slapped a protestor in the face seems to be missing from the records.
Moreover, the medico-legal report states that Boçari showed no external wounds; hence the prosecutor’s qualification of police violence as “interaction.”
The entire conviction of four citizens protesting for the little green space left in Tirana becomes even more ridiculous against the backdrop of a 419-page dossier, available to the prosecution, full of details concerning the wide network of a group of drug traffickers in Albania, with collaborators in the state, the police, and Parliament. This mountain of evidence, however, has led to not even a first, small step of the prosecution.
