Emanuel Peka, a former minister of justice in the office of the prime minister of Albania, was charged on Thursday with ordering the 2008 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tirana, the capital of the former Communist country.
According to the prosecutors’ office, Peka gave the approval, or the “green light,” for the plan to blow up a van in the Kley hotel, the boardinghouse of the embassy in Tirana. The explosion destroyed the place and killed three people, including Peka’s adviser at the time, Angeliki Dori. Peka, who was 25 at the time of the bombing, was charged as an accessory to the crime. The hotel was only one of the places where consular employees lived.
The U.S. embassy in Tirana was rebuilt after the bombing, which followed two attacks on the embassy in 2003 and 2005 that were linked to the Serb government in Kosovo. The July 17, 2008, blast has always been seen as the first major test of Albania’s new democracy. In April, police arrested 30 people in connection with the bombing. During the investigation, authorities said Peka was brought in to several meetings as the voice of a voice who ordered the attack to target “traitors.”
Read the full story at The Guardian.
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