Prime Minister Edi Rama has once again recalled how the January 21 protest by the opposition of the time began peacefully and was then provoked by the police until the fatal end with 4 victims in front of the prime minister's office from bullets fired by the state on the protesters.
"15 years ago, here in this building was barricaded an armed horde, a mixture of the regular troops of the republican guard and the notorious paramilitaries of the prime minister's office. The building was reinforced with barbed wire, stretched everywhere behind that ugly fence and bars that surrounded it after the armed attack of September 14, '98, although there were also some barricaded on January 12. The man who was installed by the people as prime minister, had launched the exercise of responding with a bullet to the forehead to the protest of the united opposition of the time.
I remember that together with Pandeli Majko and some other friends, we were crossing the boulevard bridge to come here in front of the building, an armored car appeared on the horizon and a wave of tear gas was released over the heads of people before the protest had even started, pushing us away from the park, the youth and the chaos provoked by that blind attack, turning the protest into a chaotic mess among the protesters.
Forcing us to return to the party headquarters, the protest got out of control, but beyond the crowd's reaction to the police, and fires lit, under a car, or on the sides of the pyramid, for no moment did the protesters attempt to overcome the fence of the prime minister's building except for one car that entered the iron side gate, strangely open from the inside like an invitation to a trap, none of the protesters made any attempt to breach the security perimeter, no film material anywhere highlighted the presence of any weapon in the protesters' line. When the protesters were leaving, the barrels of rifles landed on the crowd, taking 4 lives, a fatal consequence of the criminal mind, which probably did not want to miss the opportunity to show political opponents and all Albanians that it really kills. The devil knows what the mind told those who ordered it and those who executed that state crime", said Rama.