TIRANA, Jan. 15 – An explosion at Shkodra’s Partizani neighborhood injured eight people on Saturday, including Lulzim Kulla, 42, who police see as the likely target due to his criminal past.
Kulla was heavily wounded and sent to hospital and police is waiting to interrogate him.
The other seven victims, all unrelated to the attack for now, suffered light damages.
The explosive, reported to amount to 300g of TNT, was placed under a motorbike that was parked between Kulla’s building and his parking spot. The explosive was set off from a distance, after Kulla was seen parking his car and heading to his building, police said
This had the police speculate that Kulla’s movements were being surveyed for a time by the attack’s perpetrators.
A special investigation group has been established, while experts from the General Police Directorate have also been assigned the task.
Security cameras from nearby buildings, ocular witnesses and evidence from the crime scene are being verified in order to find the person who parked the explosive motorbike.
The investigation group said through a public statement the cameras’ footage is sufficient to identify the crime’s author and that authorities are working on several leads to pinpoint the cause of the incident.
Kulla appears to have former criminal arrests in Shkodra. Last year’s June, he was arrested for cannabis cultivation in Dukagjin but was released a few months later.
After the 1997 civil unrest, Kulla also established himself as a strong-man in Shkodra thanks to his alleged involvement with criminal groups operating locally at the time, local media reported.
Albania suffers from frequent acts of targeted violence, but the explosion has sparked concerns mafia-type attacks growing more indiscriminate.
