Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has strongly criticised pressure put on Tirana by Greek officials over a case concerning the arrest of the ethnic Greek mayor of the Albanian city of Himara. 

Fredi Beleri was arrested ahead of the May 14 local elections in Albania, accused of buying votes, and has been in police custody ever since. Despite his detention, he won the mayoral election in Himara, which has a large Greek minority, though he risks losing the position if he remains in prison. 

The case has caused a rift between Albania and its southern neighbour Greece, where top officials, including Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, current Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis and his predecessor Nikos Dendias have called for Beleri’s release. 

On May 12, supporters of Beleri staged a protest in Himara to demand his release. The mayors of Athens and Thessaloniki participated in the demonstration alongside Beleri's local supporters. 

Rama responded with a lengthy Facebook post published on August 15 in which he criticised Greek officials for their role in pushing for Beleri’s release. 

“In my memory, there is no other case, when the elected officials of a democratic state organise a protest in another democratic state, against the authorities of this state,” the Albanian prime minister wrote. 

“Does the Greek nationality give the Albanian citizen accused by SPAK and kept in custody by the country's courts, a different status from 48 other Albanian citizens with Albanian nationality, including some mayors of my party, who today are detained under the charges of the same body, with identical decisions of the same courts?!” 

While writing warmly of his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Rama described the events as a “politicisation of an issue of Albanian justice, to the point that a protest is organised here in Albania by elected authorities in Greece, including the mayors of the two largest cities of Greece” that does not meet the “democratic reality of the European neighbourhood, between a EU member state and a country currently negotiating EU membership.” 

There have already been warnings from Greek officials that the case could harm Albania’s EU accession prospects if Beleri is not released. 

Previously Athens held up the EU accession process of the country that is now known as North Macedonia amid a dispute over the latter’s name. The conflict was only resolved when the name ‘Macedonia’ – shared with a province in Greece – was changed to ‘North Macedonia’.