Global Courant
Fredi Beleri is 51 years old today. In 1994, when he was 22 years old, he is suspected of having been part of a group that initiated and carried out what is known as the Peshkepi massacre.
In the investigation carried out earlier by Inside Story, the fully declassified investigative file listed evidence implicating Beler. In the end, they were deemed insufficient to find him guilty of murdering two Albanian soldiers.
On April 10, 1994, seven people dressed in Greek military uniform entered the Peshkepi border post in Gjirokastër. They killed the guard Arsen Gjini and the commander Fatmir Shehu. Three soldiers were injured.
The day after the attack, the event was taken over by the Greek terrorist organization MAVI, otherwise known as the “Front for the Liberation of Vorioepire”.
About a year later, on March 19, 1995, Beleri was arrested in Greece along with 6 other people. He also stated this episode in the decriminalization form.
According to information, they had set out to carry out an attack similar to Peshkepi, this time at the Border Post near the village of Llongo in Albania. However, they were shot on the way by some hunters and then left again towards Greece.
What impresses you is that in the documents of that time Fredi Beleri’s paternity was written Foto Beleri and not Petro Beleri. So, here suspicions of forgery arise.
Although the weapons found by the Greek Police were the ones stolen in Peshkipi of Gjirokastra, the court in Athens ruled that this was not enough evidence and all seven suspects were released.
Asked in 2022 by Inside Story about the Peshkepi Massacre, Beleri denied his involvement but he did not deny that in his activity over the years he has called against the Albanian state.
“I have made statements against the Albanian state, I have also made actions that are close to the logic of the extreme right, yes never, I know all Himara and public opinion that I have nothing to do with it”, quoted Fredi Beleri.
So, Beleri did not deny his involvement in the events of 2003 that we talked about above, but he says he was not involved in the Peshkepi Massacre.
“I have nothing to do with this case, the Albanian justice spoke and gave me my innocence, at the time the incident happened I was neither in Greece nor Albania, I was in Cyprus, this fact is produced by the plane tickets, the entrances and exits to the airport, the passport then”, Beleri quoted.
In a secret Anti-Terrorist document that Inside Story has, part of the re-investigation, it is expressly stated that Beleri himself expressed pride in that episode.
“On 08.05.2007, it is evident that Fredi Beleri stated that he was one of the perpetrators of the incident that happened at the Peshpia Border Post in Gjirokastër in 1994. He expressed pride in what he did and if he is asked, he will do it again “, it is quoted in the investigative file.
“There have been no real investigations in the Albanian state and this incident has remained without a perpetrator. Therefore, the shadows of doubt fall on those who had shadows of doubt, this theory that they are not these is impossible to say, the theory that they are others we do not know, that there are no others mentioned, or there are no authors behind and there is happened by God, it is a very serious event in Albanian-Greek relations”, said researcher Ardit Bido.
In fact, the Peshkepi Massacre was about the violation of Albania’s territory by a terrorist organization that aimed to create a military intervention and liberate Vorio-Epir, a ghost of 100 years ago.
In 2019, the Serious Crimes Prosecutor’s Office reopened an investigation into the Peshkepi Massacre and the role of Fredi Beleri and other persons. He was interrogated twice and confronted with evidence implicating him but stuck to his alibi that he was in Cyprus at the time.
“Regarding this, I have to say that I have no connection with this event, at the time the event took place, I was in Cyprus and I do not know any circumstances or any details of this event,” Beleri quoted.
Even though he was caught together with other people in the car where the stolen weapons were hidden in the Peškepi Post Office, the case was closed.
Regarding those weapons, I had no idea that they were in the trunk of the car and I learned about them when the police stopped us.
According to the data, the prosecutor’s office has sent letters to get information from the Greek state, but this has resulted in no success, thus not receiving a response.
This is the letter, the answer to which never came from the Greek State. So, Greece did not respond to an interest of the Albanian Prosecutor’s Office to investigate Fredi Beleri.
We remind you that even nine years after the incident in Peshpia, the Police of Gjirokastra tried to reopen the investigations, but even at that time they did not have the support of the Greek authorities to provide information about Beler and his associates.
However, it seems that there was sabotage on the issue from within, in Albania. When the investigation into the Peshkepi Massacre was reopened in 2019, the Prosecutor’s Office for Serious Crimes asked the Court of the Judicial District of Tirana to forward the documents of the case. From the documents that Inside Story has, the file of the 1994 event has disappeared. In that fascicle were the unrepeatable acts of the investigation. This is the request addressed to the court to obtain the data of the case.
“From the study of the acts of the file, it has emerged that the acts of this criminal proceeding have been separated and sent for trial to the Tirana District Court (Military College) with the defendants citizens Pilo Ndini and Arjan Guma accused of the criminal offense of “Misuse of duty. These citizens were sentenced by decision no. 149 of the Tirana Military Criminal Court. For this reason, we request from you a copy of this judgment booklet”, it is quoted in the documents of the Court, Tirana.
“For its part, the Court of the Judicial District of Tirana through letter No. 1169/1 dated 16.05.2019 has returned an answer according to which it has resulted that: from the verifications carried out it results that instead of the court file there is only an empty file and instead of the decision is also a blank format sheet.
Also, based on the note inside the folder, further research was done both in the indexes of criminal cases and in the indexes of military criminal cases, but until 1998, no data was found”, it is quoted in the investigation file in SPAK.
It seems that someone made sure that the materials compromising Beller and his group did not go into evidence for the investigation. The mysterious disappearance of data, along with the non-arrival of data from Greece, made this very important investigation impossible.
Investigations opened in 2019 were closed in 2021 due to lack of evidence.
For the media in Albania, Beleri said that in 1994 he was in Cyprus. While he also stated that he left for Greece earlier, in 1990, to the island of Zakynthos where he worked as a plumber and waiter.
In a record kept when the investigation on him was reopened by the Prosecution of Serious Crimes, Beleri states that from January to June 1994 he was in the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia. He says that he completed a professional course for air conditioners and plumbing where there were 100 people, among them minorities and Albanian citizens of Greek nationality.
However, Beler’s activity in Greece and especially in Cyprus remains enigmatic and suspicious. A person from Himara with so much power in Greece that he can provide passports, pensions and other material goods to his fellow citizens as well as the areas around Himara.
After returning to Albania, he engaged in political activity. In 2014, Beleri returned to Albania where he was elected the head of the Himara branch for the Omonia organization.
Although suspected of the Peshkepi Massacre, Fredi Beleri reappeared on the scene in 2015 when he ran with PBDNJ against Jorgo Goro in the race for mayor of Himara where he received only 27% of the votes.
He wanted to run again in the local elections of June 30, 2019 as an independent candidate, but the CEC rejected him with the motivation that he had found a violation in the Decriminalization form. This was related to the conviction in 2006 for inciting national hatred.
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