Fredi Beleris, an ethnic Greek who was jailed on charges of vote-buying after winning a mayoral election in Albania has been released on probation after serving part of his two-year sentence.
The mayor-elect of the southern Albanian municipality of Himare, Beleris was elected as an MEP with Greece’s ruling New Democracy party in June’s European Parliament elections. The campaign was run by his son, Petros Beleri.
Following nearly one and a half years in jail, an Albanian court has accepted Beleris’ request to be released from prison, having served two-thirds of his sentence.
“After 16 months of continuous detention, I am now free and proud, but certainly not happy. Because the rule of law and democracy in Albania were not restored, the institutions did not work, justice was not delivered,” he alleged on September 2.
Beleris was released from prison on probation with the condition that he contact police authorities regularly while carrying out his MEP responsibilities in Brussels.
He was arrested two days before the May 2023 municipal ballot, accused of offering 40,000 leks (€400) in exchange for eight votes and was thus never officially sworn in.
The Central Electoral Commission of Albania deemed Beleris’ mandate unconstitutional and called for new elections.
After the decision, Beleris said he would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights over his treatment by the Albanian Government regarding his mayoral election.
“Today’s decision is only a drop in the ocean of justice. My fight now begins,” he said on September 2.
“One day, I will be among my brothers in Himara. That’s where my adventure started and I think it’s only right to be there.”
Beleris told Greek news outlet SKAI he was not vindictive and wanted Albania to become a member of the European family “but to become a member because it deserves it and not as a gift”.
He added that the recent elections in Himara were a “farce”, alleging “paramilitary” forces were sent to the region to influence the vote.
The funeral of the grandmother of elected ethnic Greek mayor Fredi Beleri in Himarë, Albania, has intensified the strained relations between Greece and Albania. https://t.co/dgWw3X7D05
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) January 8, 2024
Because he is part of the ethnic Greek minority in the region and holds dual Greek and Albanian citizenship, Beleris’ conviction became part of a diplomatic row between Greece and Albania. Greece chose to side with the politician, saying it had doubts “regarding the impartiality of the legal proceedings”.
Pavlos Marinakis, a spokesperson for the Greek Government, described Beleris’ release as “a positive development,” but added: “This does not mean that we will forget what happened in the previous 16 months and its gravity.”
“In the person of Fredi Beleris, the government sees the ethnic minority of Albania. Now the Greek minority has a representative in the European Parliament who will speak for sacred human rights,” Marinakis said.
In mid-July, shortly following the European elections, Beleris was granted a five-day leave from prison to attend the new European Parliament’s opening session in Strasbourg.
He was sworn in and participated in the first formal decisions and procedures and he was allowed to participate in an online meeting of Greek MEPs at the initiative of the Greek Permanent Representation in Brussels.
Some fresh Members of the European Parliament breathed sighs of relief after being elected with at least three of them seeing their ongoing prosecutions halted. https://t.co/0Or83iN6nJ
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) June 13, 2024
