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| Portrait of Aleks Nika at the protest in Tirana, January 21, 2013 |
The decision of the Strasbourg Court on the murder of Aleks Nika, who lost his life in the protest of January 21, is revealed. The court has concluded that there are two violations in this case: the murder and then the failure to investigate the murder.
In the reasoned decision of the Strasbourg Court, it is also stated that there have been violations of procedural duty and the substantive part of Article 2 of the Convention, violating two aspects of the right to life, local media report.
PRESS RELEASE FROM THE COURT CHANCELLOR
Albanian authorities must identify and punish those responsible for the killing of the relatives of the applicants during the 2011 protest in front of the Prime Minister's office.
In today's decision of the Chamber in the case of Nika v. Albania (application no. 1049/17), the European Court of Human Rights found, once again, that there were two violations of Article 2 (the right to life and the right to an investigation) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case concerned the death of the spouse and father of the applicants after being shot in the head in 2011 during a protest in front of the Prime Minister's office. During the protest, there had been violent clashes between demonstrators and authorities. The applicants claimed in particular that the general commander of the Republican Guard, responsible for the protection of the Prime Minister, had ordered his guards to open fire on protesters.
The Chamber found that the issue of possible chain of command responsibility had not been clarified by the relevant investigation, which focused on the individual responsibility of the Guard officers and not on the sequence or nature of the orders that may have been given by the chain of command of the Guard. There were also several other deficiencies in the investigation, including the deletion of video recordings of the incident and the failure to follow some key leads, such as the bullet marks found at the height of a person on the iron fence surrounding the Prime Minister's office. These shortcomings raised suspicions that the authorities had tried to divert or interfere with the investigation unfairly.
The Chamber also found shortcomings in the legal framework regulating the use of firearms in the context of mass gatherings at that time, as well as serious defects in the planning and control of the protest. Local authorities did not demonstrate that the use of lethal force by Guard officers resulting in the death of the applicants' relative had been absolutely necessary. In fact, the Albanian Government itself admitted that the use of force had been excessive.
COURT DECISION
Investigation
Despite the authorities' prompt response to the incident, the Court considered that there were several deficiencies raising suspicions that the authorities attempted to divert or unduly interfere with the investigation.
Firstly, high-ranking officials made hasty public statements immediately after the incident, stating that the victims were shot at close range and with types of weapons different from those used by the Guard and the police. The Prosecutor General faced harsh criticism from the then-Prime Minister and a parliamentary investigative commission working concurrently with the criminal investigation. Such an approach had a negative impact on the effectiveness of the investigation, particularly in discouraging witnesses from cooperating.
Furthermore, although arrest warrants had been issued for the suspected officers of the Republican Guard, they were not executed, with inaccuracies in their content claimed. The officers themselves surrendered 18 days later, causing a delay in a critical phase and the potential to minimize cooperation or distort the truth.
It was also crucial that video recordings of the incident, stored in the Prime Minister's server room, were deleted. The suspicion that the deletion may have been intentional went unanswered in the criminal process against an IT employee, a process that failed to determine who and how the recordings were deleted.
The Killing of 4 Protesters on 'Dëshmorët e Kombit' Boulevard on January 21, 2011
Ziver Veizi, Faik Myrtaj, Hekuran Deda, and Aleks Nika were killed on "Dëshmorët e Kombit" Boulevard during the Socialist Party protest, then in opposition. Immediately after the murders, socialists deemed the event a state crime, accusing then-Prime Minister Sali Berisha as the main culprit. Meanwhile, the Tirana Court convicted former Guard commander Andrea Prendi and guard Agim Llupo for the incident.
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| Silent protest in Tirana for the killing of 4 protesters, January 21, 2012. Family members hold the portraits of the victims. |
Remembering the 4 victims granted the status of 'Martyrs of the Homeland.' Over the years, family, relatives, and politics pay tribute on the Boulevard, placing flowers at the spot where the 4 protesters were killed."