Unlawful arrests, 55 complaints announced by the government and a complaint addressed to special prosecutors. Accountability extends beyond the officer caught on camera, but rank alone does not establish guilt.
Accountability for police violence does not end with suspending seven officers. Rulings on arrests, allegations of ill-treatment and demands for investigations raise a wider question: who used force, who directed the operation and who had a duty to stop a violation? Each person’s responsibility must be established through evidence, not assigned by rank or political affiliation.
The Tirana court found 22 of the 27 arrests it reviewed on 22 October unlawful, including those of six minors, according to BIRN. It ordered all 27 people released unless held for another offence; six were required to report to the authorities. This was a ruling on arrests and pretrial measures, not an acquittal or a criminal judgment against police officers.
On 23 October, Deputy Interior Minister Silva Caka said in Korça that citizens had submitted 55 complaints alleging police misconduct. In remarks carried by Euronews Albania and A2 CNN, she referred to seven suspended officers being investigated by the Police Oversight Agency and four people investigated on the agency’s own initiative. Caka acknowledged that some interventions had exceeded officers’ duties.
These are government figures and assessments, not findings of guilt.
At the Blloku i Sigurisë detention facility in Tirana, monitors from the Ombudsman’s office found 118 people in premises with a capacity of 67. This was the number present, not the number arrested that day. Six were minors. On 21 October, the institution also reported six complaints of violence during detention or while people were being taken into police custody, following its monitoring of the previous day’s protest. The findings are preliminary; the complaints are not yet findings of responsibility against individual officers. (Ombudsman’s findings.)
These rulings and findings take the debate beyond the clashes on the boulevard. What happens to a person once they are under police control? Who checks how they are treated, and who is held accountable if the law is broken?
The answer does not lie solely with the officer seen in a video. It involves those in charge of the operation and internal police oversight, as well as the Police Oversight Agency, prosecutors and the courts. The Ombudsman and Parliament have other oversight roles, but neither can impose criminal penalties. (institutional powers.)
What the police have acknowledged
At the 17 October press conference, Director General Skënder Hita announced that seven officers had been suspended and disciplinary investigations opened. He said no orders had been given to act against procedures and that any misconduct would be dealt with under the law. Hita referred to attacks on police officers with stones, metal objects and Molotov cocktails, as well as property damage. In a statement on 22 October, police official Albert Nushi again denied that police leaders had issued unlawful orders for violence. This is the institution’s position, not a judicial finding. Nushi’s statement predates the announcement of the SPAK complaint and is not a response to it. (police press conference; police statement.)
It would therefore be inaccurate to say there has been no institutional response. But suspension is not a criminal sentence. A disciplinary investigation examines breaches of duty and professional rules; criminal responsibility requires a separate process.
An administrative measure neither replaces that process nor proves guilt in itself.
On 21 October, BIRN reported, based on the Tirana Prosecutor’s Office’s response, that three criminal proceedings concerning violence at protests had been registered, with no police officer yet under investigation. That was the status reported that day, not the outcome of the investigations. Caka’s statement two days later concerns the oversight agency’s actions.
It does not clarify whether prosecutors have since formally named any officers as people under investigation. The two announcements cannot be treated as a single tally of criminal-procedural status.
Two duties that do not cancel each other out
The police must protect people and property from violence. A person who attacks an officer or damages property may face investigation and legal proceedings. But their conduct does not give the state the right to torture them or subject them to inhuman or degrading treatment. The European Convention on Human Rights allows no exceptions to this prohibition. (European Convention.)
Likewise, taking part in a protest does not make someone responsible for everyone else’s actions. European case law requires the conduct of each participant to be considered separately; violence by others does not automatically strip a peaceful participant of protection. (case law on peaceful assembly.)
This is where proportionality matters: force must respond to the specific risk and need, rather than become punishment. When a person is under police control, force that is not strictly necessary because of their conduct undermines their dignity and, in principle, violates Article 3 of the Convention. (case law on ill-treatment.)
For families, this is not a legal technicality. It means arrest does not take away the right to humane treatment. For officers doing their jobs, the same distinction helps prevent a lawful intervention from being confused with a colleague’s abuse.
The letter looking beyond the camera
An open letter dated 17 October, initiated by the Res Publica Centre and signed by citizens and organisations, is addressed to Hita and Tirana Police Director Oliger Torba. It does not seek action only against officers caught on camera. It requests documents showing how police interventions were planned, ordered and supervised.
Its 19-point request covers use-of-force reports, lists of officers under investigation and the status of those investigations, the actions of plainclothes officers, transport in unmarked vehicles, medical assistance and the treatment of minors. It also seeks records showing when senior officers learned of the incidents and what action they took afterwards.
This is the difference between asking “who struck the blow?” and “who had a duty to stop it?” The second question does not automatically establish a senior officer’s guilt. It requires establishing their specific duties, the information they had, the decisions they made and their ability to intervene.
The letter describes the incidents as signs of a systemic problem. That is the signatories’ assessment, not a judicial finding. Its annex contains 32 entries, including incidents, summaries of reporting and institutional statements; it is not a list of 32 separately proven violations.
The authors acknowledge that some of the material requires verification.
The equipment used also remains to be clarified. The body of the letter sets reports of rubber bullets against the police’s denial, which described the devices as diversionary. The signatories request the technical names, quantities, authorisations and use reports.
Without that information, a label on social media is not enough to identify the ammunition.
The complaint seeks scrutiny of police command
On 23 October, organisations and citizens announced a criminal complaint to SPAK, Albania’s special prosecution office for corruption and organised crime. According to Shteg, it seeks investigations into police leaders and scrutiny of the roles of Prime Minister Edi Rama and Interior Minister Ervin Demo. It raises suspicions of organised or tolerated misconduct, not only individual breaches.
The complaint does not establish that SPAK has opened an investigation against those named. The complainants’ announcement determines neither guilt nor which institution will handle each allegation. Investigators must connect an act or omission to a specific person and the evidence supporting it.
Who investigates and who decides
Internal oversight examines whether an officer has fulfilled their duties. AMP has oversight and investigative functions concerning officers within its jurisdiction; it is not a court and should not be confused with a mechanism outside the executive branch. The relevant prosecutor’s office leads criminal investigations.
The court determines criminal responsibility.
The Ombudsman examines rights violations by public administration, monitors places where people are deprived of their liberty and issues recommendations. Its findings can assist an investigation, but they do not replace a court ruling. Parliamentary oversight, meanwhile, seeks explanations and accountability from the executive; it is not a criminal trial.
For this reason, complaints, verification, investigations, charges and convictions must be kept distinct. Not every complaint is substantiated. But credible allegations of ill-treatment require an effective investigation, not just a public response.
Why evidence must be preserved
On 21 October, Reporters Without Borders published 28 reports of violence, threats or obstruction affecting at least 23 media workers between 13 and 19 October. The organisation called for investigations and parliamentary oversight. This is an account of the reports it collected, not a criminal ruling against those responsible for each incident.
Phone inspections raise a further concern. In its preliminary findings of 20 October, the Ombudsman relayed accounts from minors and adults who said they had been asked to unlock phones and allow their personal data to be inspected without a court order. BIRN’s reporting on 23 October brought renewed attention to these accounts and the legal limits on inspecting personal data. (findings on treatment in custody.)
Obstructing journalists also affects the public’s ability to understand what happened. A video may document a blow, but not necessarily the order behind it, what preceded it or how the person was treated afterwards. That is why the letter calls for the preservation of original footage, radio communications, duty rosters, and transport and ammunition records.
These materials need to be compared with one another. The time a person was apprehended and the time they were registered at the police station help establish how long they were deprived of their liberty. A duty roster may help identify an officer seen in footage.
Medical records are important in documenting injuries, while determining their cause and responsibility requires an assessment of the evidence as a whole.
The debate cannot be settled by choosing between protecting police officers and protecting protesters. The state must do both. Beyond the number of suspensions, the measure of accountability is whether each incident receives an evidence-based answer: what happened, who acted, who should have intervened and what legal consequences followed.
Disclosure: The author is one of the signatories to the open letter of 17 October 2026.