Prime Ministers of Albania

The former leader of Albania's opposition Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, on Wednesday claimed he had collected enough signatures to provoke new elections in the party, in a clear challenge to the current leader Lulzim Basha.

Those charged included Albania's defence minister from 2005 to 2008, Fatmir Mediu, other senior defence ministry officials and members of the army's top brass. 

Initially filed with the Supreme Court, the case, apart from Mediu's, was then separated and sent to the Tirana District Court. 

The former leader of Albania's main opposition Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, on Tuesday told supporters in the central town of Kavaja that he intends a return to the helm of the party he left in 2013, in a direct challenge to the current leader, Lulzim Basha.

Albania's opposition Democratic Party will end its boycott of parliament on Friday, but faces serious questions over how it will handle a decision by party leader Lulzim Basha to remove his predecessor and mentor, Sali Berisha, from its parliamentary caucus.

This wasn't the first mass escape from Albania. A few months before, on March 6, 1991, several thousand more Albanians reached Italy after seizing cargo ships in the ports.

A year earlier, on July 1990, some 5,000 others took refuge in foreign embassies in the capital, Tirana. Thousands more crossed the land border to Greece.

Albania's Ministry of Justice told BIRN on Tuesday that the new agreement with the UK would need to be ratified first by the Albanian parliament to enter into force and before initially dozens of criminals come to Albania to serve their sentences.

Less than two months after his party lost the general elections on 25 April for the third time to the Socialist Party, Lulzim Basha won internal leadership elections, confirming his grip on the party for the next four years.

US President Joe Biden speaks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, June 2, 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/Samuel Corum/POOL

Albanian MPs on Wednesday voted to oust the country's president, Ilir Meta, though the final decision on the issue must go to the Constitutional Court, which will conclude if Meta will be removed from office before his term ends in until 2022.

Some 104 lawmakers in the ruling Socialist-dominated chamber voted for dismissal while seven voted against. Three abstained.

The Socialists vowed to bring down Meta the moment they secured victory in a parliamentary election on April 25, without even waiting for the new MPs to take their seats in September.

They accuse Meta, a former Socialist prime minister who quit the party 17 years ago, of inciting violence and fomenting political instability with his statements before and during the election.