Albania British Diplomats Shot Conclusion, details the aftermath of the incident where myself and two colleagues from the British Embassy were ambushed on Dajte mountain on the outskirts of Tirana in Albania in 1998 and my two colleagues shot.
Albania British Diplomats Ambushed And Shot
The story continues:
So we set off. There was a small convoy of police cars plus our vehicle that slowly snaked back up the mountain. Finally we reached the spot. It was not hard to identify as there was broken glass on the road as well as the long tyre marks we had left behind as we burned rubber taking off making our escape.
The convoy stopped and the police got out of their vehicles and I joined them. Some started to cordon off the road while a number with automatic weapons spread out around the scene in some sort of haphazard search pattern looking for clues or traces of the culprits. After about half an hour just standing around, I asked my Embassy driver, Benny to ask the police if I could leave for the hospital to visit my colleagues. The senior policeman on the scene agreed but said he wanted me to visit police HQ later that day to make an initial statement.
After agreeing to do so and telling them that until further notice Benny would be my official interpreter for the time being, both he and I jumped in our vehicle and headed for the hospital in Tirana. I could see that Benny was nervous. Dealing with all of this was definitely not part of his job description. He was doing a great job not only as a driver putting himself in what might have been a potentially dangerous situation but also with helping out with the police.
About an hour later, after an uneventful trip, we arrived at the main hospital in Tirana. Benny and I went in and were taken to where the Deputy Head of Mission (DHM) and the Management Officer (MO) were being patched up. The doctor explained (via Benny) that the DHM was lucky, the bullet had gone through the fleshy part of her arm without breaking any bones or damaging any nerves. The doctor wanted to keep her in, but she was insistent of going home once the treatment was completed.
As for the MO, he was extremely lucky. When the bullet hit him, it had spent a lot of its force going through the window then the DHM’s arm and upholstery before finally grazing him along the stomach resulting in blood loss. He too was insistent on discharging himself after treatment and going home. As for me, I was still in a state of disbelief that out of all the bullets fired, only one had done all this damage.
I had by then briefed both him and the DHM about what the police were currently doing plus the fact that I now had to go to police HQ to make a statement. I got Benny to call a second Embassy driver to bring the other armoured vehicle to the hospital to take both the DHM and MO home. We agreed that after I had been to police HQ, we would all meet up later in the DHM’s house.
With that, Benny and I set off for police HQ. When I got there, I found that there were a small number of Albanian government officials gathered around a desk with senior police officers. Again thanks to Benny, I managed to give them a written statement of sorts as to what had happened.
After giving the statement, I was told to wait in another room. After about thirty minutes twiddling my thumbs, I was taken outside to a courtyard where a large number of heavily armed police were assembled. I wondered what was going on and asked Benny to try and find out, but nobody was talking.
Suddenly a door opened at the far end of the courtyard and a long file of men entered. They were directed to line up against the brick wall facing us. The police then told Benny that these men had been seized on and around the mountain during the police sweep.
Apparently, a number of them were well known to the police who described them as “hardened criminals” and the police were confident that one or several of them were definitely the culprits. When Benny told me all of this, I was not so certain.
Were these guys some sort of token show to prove the police were on the ball? How could I identify someone who was masked? I did not know for certain if there was just one man or a number of others involved in the shooting and I made a point of telling the police this.
They were not convinced or put off and they then asked me to go down the line and look at them. I refused and told them again I could not identify someone who had been wearing a mask throughout the incident?
However, one of the government officials sidled up to me and in perfect English said it was the custom in Albania and part of their procedures that a line up had to take place. Even if I could not identify anyone, the police would still hold and question them.
Of course, this being Albania at that time, there was no hiding behind a one-way mirror or any other form of masking my identity as a witness, so reluctantly, I started down the line. They were a dishevelled bunch and did not look too happy to be standing there. I had to stop in front of each one and say, “no, I was not sure and I could not be certain that this was the culprit”.
They all stared straight ahead and as I stopped in front of each individual and made my declaration, they all looked me straight in the eye, which was pretty unnerving to say the least.
Finally, I came to the end of the line. I again confirmed that I could not positively identify anyone and asked if I was free to go as I needed to meet up with my two colleagues. The police agreed and with a great deal of relief, both Benny and I left and headed for the DHM’s house.
We made good time and when we reached her house, we found that she had already informed London of events. Word had quickly spread amongst the small diplomatic community in the city and she was dealing with well-wishers from her circle of diplomatic friends and also officials from the Albanian government who were in attendance.
I then briefed the DHM on what I had experienced at the Police HQ and seeing that she was going to be well looked after I set off with Benny to see the MO at his residence. It turned out that the MO was not at home but ensconced in the London Bar (a favourite watering hole for the small number of foreigners in Tirana at that time) regaling all and sundry with what had happened and showing everyone his battle scar.
What a guy, his prescription for a traumatic day, a couple of stiff drinks to settle the nerves in the face of adversity so to speak. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lot more than a couple of quick drinks as more and more people turned up in the bar as the news spread to hear the story, see the MO’s war wound and of course buy us more drinks (for medicinal and recuperative purposes of course) which were gratefully received.
In the end, they never did catch anyone. The shootings made the front page of the UK press and I was pretty sure the incident had been an embarrassment to the Albanian government who had seen virtually the whole UK establishment of the British Embassy in Albania (at that time there was only 4 British diplomats in residence) nearly albaniawiped out on what was supposed to be (on their assurances) a safe route.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/albanian-gunmen-wound-british-diplomats-1156205.html
Locally, there was a lot of speculation and gossip about the event. People could not get their heads around the fact that even the local bad guys would not be stupid enough to hold up a diplomatically plated vehicle as this action would be sure to bring a firestorm of police activity down on them.
A story went around that we were in fact carrying a lot of cash and the purpose of our trip to the mountain was to buy back looted weapons (looted from military arsenals throughout Albania during civil unrest the previous year) from criminal elements in order to get them off the street as part of some sort of UK government initiative.
Another story was that we went to meet some members of the nascent Kosovo Liberation Army in order to deliver a substantial amount of cash to aid them in their struggle against the Serbs in Kosovo.
Both stories of course were complete rubbish. However unglamorous, the fact was that we were the unlucky victims of an armed robbery/carjack that went wrong, we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For me, I never did reconcile the fact that the only person actually physically robbed was myself, the lowest grade and the lowest paid of the whole party. Where is the justice in that? I dined out on that story for many a month to come.
In the days that followed, the DHM was evacuated back from Albania to the UK for further medical treatment. The FCO had managed to locate the holidaying Ambassador and he returned to post and both the MO and I went back to work as normal.
It is important to remember that this was the Albania of 1998 and not the Albania of 2023. I only spent a year in Tirana before my next posting to Kosovo but what an eventful year it turned out to be.
It was a time of huge change and upheaval in Albania. After decades of the brutal and repressive Hoxha communist regime, followed by the great national pyramid scheme which impoverished hundreds of thousands of Albanians not used to such criminal schemes who lost everything, no wonder the country erupted into mass civil unrest.
But moving on from those dark days, I have been back to Albania twice since then. It is a beautiful and stunning country rich in history and the developing coastline is a tourist paradise. I still have friends from our embassy, local staff who I keep in contact with regularly even to this day via social media. If you ever get the chance…..go visit Albania, you will not be disappointed.
Albania My First Posting A Bloodstained Surprise