The arrest in Turkey of the internationally wanted Albanian, Dritan Rexhepi, happened thanks to the Italian police, Interior Minister Taulant Balla declared tonight.
He gave details about the operation in Istanbul.
"From our side, Dritan Rexhepi has been a person with a red stamp, with the greatest alarm. To be fair, I had the deputy general director of the Italian Police in the office 2 days ago, the main credit goes to the Italian Police, they have been very important and have done a commendable job to follow his entire journey.
I have informed the authorities of the Italian Police that for many reasons the first country of extradition should be Albania due to the murder of two police officers, but we and Italy are very open to cooperation for any kind of need they may have. to question him.
Turkey has two requests, one from Albania and one from Italy. But we and Italy solve things with each other.
The Albanian Police has been very important in providing DNA data or other very important data. At the villa in Turkey (the arrest of Rexhepi) the credit goes to the Italian Police and the Istanbul Police. Even at that moment there were attempts to leave ", said the Minister of the Interior.
Asked if recently Dritan Rexhepi has been in Albania, Balla said that the Albanian police had this information, made verifications and no such thing resulted. However, he did not rule it out as a possibility.
"Several verifications have been done by us, at the moment there are no results. But the fact that he continues to be involved in criminal acts in Albania does not exclude such a thing. It is not very difficult to penetrate the borders of the biometric control, as is the control at the airport of Rinas or at the ports. He has family members in Albania or his associates, I emphasize again that it is important for us that this person is in handcuffs today" , said Balla.