First day of school in Tirana: false terror alarm at a school, officer suspended for punching detainee

Protest regular Edmond Jatagani arrested after reporting a terrorist threat at the Emin Duraku school; a Shqiponja officer suspended for striking a detained marcher; 20 participants in Sunday night’s road blockades referred to prosecutors.

The Newsroom

The 106th night and 107th morning of the anti-government protest produced three police actions in the hours around the opening of the school year on Monday.

At about 06:30, Edmond Jatagani, 47, called the 112 emergency line to report, in his own words on camera, “terrorism with weapons of mass destruction in schools” at the Emin Duraku primary school. He filmed himself outside the gate waiting for the patrol, posted the video to his social media accounts and urged others to follow: “I hope every parent does the same thing to protect their own child.” He timed the response. “When you are at the Kryeministria protesting they escort you away in seconds, and now a thousand children are not worth as much as the Prime Minister,” he said.

A three-officer patrol arrived within minutes. Jatagani told them the school, rebuilt under the EU-funded EU4Schools programme, was clad in flammable polystyrene, that teachers had no evacuation instructions, and that a pupil could set it alight to avoid an exam. The Anti-terror and anti-explosive units searched the building and found no explosive material or other threat. Tirana police, with the Anti-terror unit, arrested him on two counts, false reporting to law enforcement and spreading false information that causes panic, and referred the file to the Tirana Prosecution. Pupils and teachers entered at 08:00 as scheduled.

The alarm had been announced from the podium the night before. On Sunday evening Jatagani told the crowd outside the Prime Minister’s office that 65 schools rebuilt with European money were covered in flammable polystyrene, that “a lighter would be enough” for one child to “take a thousand children with him,” and that 450 schools had been built the same way since 2015. “Tomorrow, do not send your children to the crematoria, bring them here in front of the Kryeministria at seven in the morning,” he said. His own child attends Emin Duraku. “I have a fight in the family because my wife will not leave the children without school,” he said in Monday’s video. Police have escorted him away from the protest on several earlier occasions over calls to violence, according to Shqiptarja.com, which reported his name as Mandi Jatagani.

At seven, the hour Jatagani had named for parents to gather, a small group assembled in Skanderbeg Square and marched along Rruga e Durrësit toward Zogu i Zi at the peak of first-day traffic. Police escorted several participants away, among them Visuar Dalipi, and dispersed the group. During the escorts an officer of the Shqiponja special force punched a detained protester in the stomach. After the video circulated, State Police Director General Skender Hita suspended the officer, identified as Inspector J. H. of the Tirana police directorate, and ordered the Professional Standards Directorate to open a disciplinary investigation “for unlawful and unreasonable use of force and for actions that seriously damage the image of the police officer, the institution or the police service as a whole.” The State Police said it “does not tolerate any action carried out contrary to the law and professional standards.” The three cases fall in the first week of Ervin Demo, Interior Minister since 11 September.

Separately, police referred 20 participants in Sunday night’s march, seven of them women, aged 19 to 59, to the Tirana Prosecution on three counts: organising and taking part in unlawful gatherings, obstructing traffic, and disturbing public order. They are under investigation at liberty. Police said the group blocked the Dëshmorët e Kombit, Bajram Curri and Gjergj Fishta boulevards, Wilson Square and the Sami Frashëri and Abdyl Frashëri streets. A group had blocked the 21 Dhjetori junction some days earlier.

Deputy Prime Minister Albana Koçiu called the school alarm “outright criminal madness” and said those “who soil the protest, who confuse freedom with the anarchy of their own vacant minds” should be shown “very quickly that Albania is not a theatre where they can stage their sick dramas for free.”

Monday’s search at Emin Duraku looked for explosive devices; no authority has commented on the fire rating of the EU4Schools facade materials.