Five years ago Konstantinos Katsifas, a member of the indigenous Greek minority of Northern Epirus at the southern part of Albania, was executed in cold blood by the Albanian police Special Forces Unit “Renea”.
In the weeks before the incident Katsifas was being constantly harassed by the local police officers with continues interrogations for no reason, as they knew that he wanted to decorate his village of Vouliarates with Greek flags for the celebrations of the October 28th “OXI Day” anniversary, as it is a right of the internationally recognized Ethnic Greek Minority of Albania.
The rest of the story is described in the report.
What is not in the report of the time, as it became known later on by eye witnesses, was that:
1. The officer had directly threatened Katsifas’ life and family pointing to his sidearm, a move that naturally enraged Konstantinos.
2. There was no exchange of fire. The incident ended quickly with the point blank execution of Katsifas with two bullets.
3. In the almost three to four hours that followed the police, that had blocked the access to the wider area of incident, realizing that it would be hard for them to explain what they had done, fired shots in the air to make it sound as if there was a gunfight going on.
The body of Konstantinos Katsifas was not properly examined and important details were lost.
Two Albanian prosecutors resigned from the case, while the Greek witnesses that were interrogated, stated that they were put under enormous pressure to sign things they had not testified.
In October 2021 the prosecutor provocatively declared that Katsifas had committed suicide, something that, fortunately enough, the Albanian court did not accept and ordered the case to remain open…
Below is the original report of themanews.com:
UPDATE: According to the latest information, Katsifas was shot twice, once on his chest and once in the head. This, however, complicates the case as such wounds can be inflicted from a very small range, something that indicates to an execution.
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According to information from Northern Epirus in the southern part of Albania, a 35-year-old member of the Greek national minority has been shot dead by the Albanian police.
The man, who has been identified as Konstantinos Katsifas, had raised a big Greek flag in honour of the Greek “OXI Day” anniversary in his village of Vouliarates.
The police, however, although the village is inhabited by Greeks of the internationally recognized ethnic Greek minority, in a provocative move lowered the flag.
Katsifas raised it again, and when the police tried for a second time to lower it they begun to argue.
He then started firing warning shot against Albanian police officers.
After that he escaped to the mountainous area to avoid capture.
Police forces in Argyrokastro called for the assistance of the Albanian Police Special Forces “Rinea” and a helicopter hurried to the region from Tirana.
After the manhunt that followed, there was an exchange of fire where he shot against one of the police cars, before the special forces shot him dead.
Every year, at the “OXI Day” anniversary, the villages of the Greek Minority in Albania decorate the streets with Greek flags, as they have the right to.
However, the Albanian media constantly present this as a provocation against Albania, thus targeting the members of the minority.
This is not the first time a member of the Greek minority has been killed.
In August 2013 Aristotelis Goumas was murdered in Himara simply because he was speaking Greek in his own restaurant.
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