The Court of Saranda today set the security measure "prison arrest" for Sokrat Lipan alias Sokrat Vata, suspected of the murder of Portuguese tourist Luis Miguel Varela Mendez in Ksamil.
In the courtroom, Sokrat Vata expressed remorse for the incident and gave his version of the collision that ended with the tourist's death.
Meanwhile, during the court session, Sokrat Vata initially apologized to the victim's family and told me the dynamics of the incident.
He stated that there was a group of French tourists in the bar, who were making noise.
According to Vata, his friend asked them to remain calm, but the tourists continued to curse and then a physical fight began.
Vata claimed that during the conflict, one of the tourists had a knife, which he took from him after neutralizing it. At this point, according to his testimony, one of the tourists kicked him in the jaw, knocking him to the ground. He stated that, as the tourists tried to hit him again, he instinctively moved his hand to protect himself, but he does not remember how he hit the victim.
"I apologize to the victim's family, I express my condolences, I regret what happened. A group of French tourists were inside the bar, they were making noise. My friend asked them to keep quiet, they did not obey, they started cursing us. We approached them closer and asked them again to keep quiet, but they started hitting us. During the physical fight, we went outside. One of them had a knife, I neutralized it and took the knife. At this moment, one of the foreign tourists kicked me in the jaw. I fell there. They tried to hit me again. I instinctively moved my hand to protect myself. I do not remember how I hit him, as I was in shock. I did not know if any of them were injured, as there were many of them. I left from the shock," Vata declared.
Meanwhile, Turkish citizen Nuh Mahmutoglu stated that he knew Vata, as they had collaborated for tourists because he communicated in English.
"Vata called me at 6:30 and asked me for help to accompany him to Tirana, after he told me he had fallen off his motorbike," declared Nuh Mahmutoglu.
Despite their positions, the Saranda Court left them in prison.