Albanian police

The Foreign and Civil Protection Ministries have appealed on Greeks planning to attend the funeral of an ethnic Greek who was shot dead by Albanian police last week to show restraint and respect towards his family, according to sources from the two ministries, cited by state-run news agency ANA-MPA.

The funeral of Konstantinos Katsifas, a 35-year-old ethnic Greek fatally shot by Albanian police on October 28, will take place on Thursday in the village of Bularat in southern Albania, after authorities handed his body over to his family on Wednesday.

Albanian authorities have agreed to hand over the body of Konstantinos Katsifas, a 35-year-old ethnic Greek fatally shot by police in southern Albania on October 28, the family's lawyer has said.

It is expected that authorities in Albania will release Katsifas's body to his relatives by Tuesday, lawyer Efthimios Navridis told ANT1 television on Monday.

Albania lodged a new protest with the Greek ambassador to Tirana on Wednesday following several incidents in Greece sparked by the killing of an ethnic Greek gunman by Albanian police at the weekend.  

Former Greek foreign minister Theodoros Pangalos said police should have the right to shoot anyone wielding a gun, during a radio interview on Thursday.

His comment came during a discussion on the fatal shooting of a 35-year-old ethnic Greek man by police in southern Albania on Sunday.

Police in northern Greece have set off tear gas and flash grenades during a rally to protest the fatal police shooting of a man in Albania.

Albanian police shot Greek-Albanian dual citizen Constantinos Katsifas over the weekend, saying he opened fire on officers at an ethnic Greek village.

A 35-year-old Greek man who was fatally shot by Albanian police in southern Albania last Sunday was not fired at from close range, according to a lawyer representing the victim's relatives.

In comments to reporters after talking to a Greek coroner who examined the body, the lawyer Konstantinos Giovanopoulos said that the 35-year-old was shot twice in the chest.

Two violent incidents have been recorded in Greece allegedly linked to the killing of an ethnic Greek, Kostandinos Kacifa, who was shot dead by Albanian police at the weekend.

The Panepirotic Federation of America has issued a statement strongly condemning the "senseless killing" of an ethnic Greek by Albanian police in a village near Albania's border with Greece on Sunday and has called for an "internationally supervised investigation" to determine how he died.

Albanian police said Kostandinos Kacifa, 35, a citizen of Albania and Greece, was shot dead by officers who were attempting to arrest him after he fired on a police patrol in the ethnic Greek-populated village of Bularat in south Albania on Sunday.

The incident happened during celebrations in the village to mark 'Oxi Day', a Greek national holiday.