Fredi Beleri, mayor-elect of the ethnically Greek city of Himare in Albania, has been sentenced to two years in prison for buying votes in the local election.
Beleri was arrested in May last year, days before the vote, on charges of allegedly bribing eight voters.
The ethnic Greek won the election but could not be sworn in while under arrest.
According to Kathimerini, during his trial at the Special Court on Corruption and Organized Crime, Beleri said the court was biased and that such trial “could have take place once upon a time but not in a European state in the year 2024, where it is not officially in a dictatorship.”
In a statement following the hearing, he slammed the judicial proceedings.
“With a fake criminal record, no evidence, no other witnesses except one who was bribed by the police, with an ‘appointed’ judge, in a glass cage without communication with my lawyer, the Albanian court sentenced me today to two years in prison,” Beleri said.
“My crime is that we, Himarans, want to be masters of our ancestral land. My crime is that my countrymen elected me mayor against the plans of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.”
He and his lawyer have said they will appeal the decision, while the court has also handed his aide, Pantelis Kokavesis an 18-month suspended sentence.
Greece has previously called on the Albanian government to stop the process against Beleri, and reportedly said it may block the country from joining the EU.
The Albanian government has said it could do nothing while the case was in court.