TIRANA, Albania — Albanian police have sued the leader of the country’s opposition Democratic Party over accusations that he incited calls for violence.
A police statement Saturday said Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha on Friday urged “citizens to violently react against state institutions,” a crime that, if proven, carries up to a three-year jail sentence.
For a week, hundreds of Democrats have blocked the main boulevard in Tirana, the capital, saying they don’t trust the left-wing government to hold the June 18 parliamentary election in a fair manner. They say they want a caretaker cabinet instead.
Police quoted Basha as saying, “You want a fight? A fight it will be. Puncture the car tires, break the glasses. Time will come to drag [officials] at this square.”
Basha told supporters Saturday that he had been misunderstood, insisting that the party’s protest was “grandiose, popular, democratic, total and peaceful” and not a “call for war” as police were suggesting.