Aleksandër Kola was the police guide to Violand Braçellari’s camp. The head of the Maliqi Police Station, Eduard Allushi, asked him to accompany them to the place where the wanted man was sleeping.
At around 5:00 in the morning, he received a WhatsApp message and gave him a mask and a T-shirt like those of the police. Then, 5 cars headed towards the scene. These vehicles, at around 06:30–07:00, stopped at a distance of 100–200 meters from the place where Violand Braçellari was. After all the police officers got off, it was found that they were wearing bulletproof equipment and were armed with automatic weapons. There were two groups on the ground, which were separated. As a precautionary measure, the director of the Korça Police, Vilson Bala, ordered two police officers to be sent to the HEC near the station to keep the workers under surveillance, for fear that they might provide information.
One police group was led by the two deputy directors of Korça, via the Maliq-Lozhan-Bode road axis. Meanwhile, the other group was led by the local director himself, Vilson Bala, who would follow the Korça-Voskopojë-Bode route. At least, this was the operational plan according to the written letters and the testimony of the director of the Korça Police, Vilson Bala, in the investigation being conducted by the AMP. But what really happened when the action began and they confronted Violand Braçellari in his barracks?
“We were here, I was with the boy, I told him they came. I saw them from the window coming from the mountain. The boy went out the window and went, there were 6 people…”, said Violand’s mother, Berdane Braçellari.
Violand’s mother’s testimony regarding the incident also bears similarities to the statement of the head of the Eagles, Dhimitër Trushi. The latter was at the head of the Eagles group that had a gunfight with the much-wanted Violand Braçellari. The group consisted of 7 officers. At the moment they entered the station, two of the police officers left, positioning themselves at the end of the buildings to monitor the possible movements of the perpetrator, according to the instructions of the deputy director of order, Lorenc Shehu.
The group began to approach the camp. The two deputy directors, the chief of the Maliqi Police Station and the police station services, agents of the directorate and officers of the directorate entered the buildings. He, together with police officers Edison Adri, Enea Mekolli, Ermir Sokoli and Renato Seiti, continued in line to search until the end of the buildings. According to Trushi’s testimony, all the buildings were surrounded, except for the last one, a one-story hall that had an exit towards the stream. The terrain was bare and Enea, Edison, Ermir and Trushi, who was located in front of Renato, approached from above the road below.
As they approached, Enea and Edison noticed that there was movement in the stable and called out: “There is movement in the stable.”
At this time, he shouted: “The stable is surrounded” and they called out to the person inside: “Police, come out, you are surrounded, we are Renea.”
He and Ermir were in the corner of the warehouse, while Edison and Enea were in front of a pile of manure, while Renato was behind them. After asking for help from other police officers, Trushi explains that he heard automatic gunfire and then two more shots. When he turned to see the police officers, he saw that Edison Adri had fallen to the ground. He saw him with a blood mark on his jaw and motioned for him to help. The Eagles’ boss went to help him, but it was impossible as Kalashnikov rifles were coming towards them. At this moment, the police returned fire. Edison Adri crawled and came towards the group, where he received first aid.
After this time, I heard the screams of the person being searched saying: “I surrendered, I dropped the weapon,” and my colleagues saying: “We caught him.”
Edison was taken by colleagues Eriksoni and Renato Seiti and left for the hospital. At this time, he heard his colleague Enea Ibi, who said: “Boss, boss, Enea is lying down too”, referring to Enea Mekolli. He went to the place that was a few meters away and found him lying on the ground, where he did not react at all.
“I remember it very well, Enea was here when he was killed, while I don’t know the injured one. It was like a movie here, just shooting, gunfire. I wanted to get in between the bullets and die. The boy was there,” said Violand’s mother, Berdane Braçellari.
Violand Braçellari completely emptied the magazine of his Model 56 automatic rifle. Only when he ran out of bullets did he decide to surrender. An examination of Enea Mekolli’s body revealed that he had been shot in the head, neck, ear, chest and leg.
The automatic weapon was also found resting on the victim’s body. There were 29 rounds in the magazine and the last one was in the chamber, which indicates that this citizen did not fire the weapon. It is striking that the martyr Mekolli had given his personal service pistol to Deputy Director Lorenc Shehu to keep, as the officer would only use the automatic weapon.
“We didn’t know there were weapons, we didn’t know… We had the drones, radios, and binoculars in case our cattle went to the mountains, not for anything else,” said Violand’s mother, Berdane Braçellari.