Durrës prosecutor Arian Ndoja is among three people wounded today on the Shkozet overpass in Durrës during what appears to be an assassination attempt.

Early media reports suggested a passenger in Ndoja’s car had died during the attack, but a police statement said that only three people were wounded. Reports also suggest that Ndoj was the main target, while it is unclear whether only one or multiple people exchanged fire.

The attempt on Ndoja’s life comes only weeks after the verbal attacks of Prime Minister Edi Rama and Deputy Prime Minister Erion Braçe against the prosecutor, after he kept Durrës Cadaster Director Liridon Pula to pre-trial detention. During a speech in Parliament on October 9, the Prime Minister attacked the judiciary by calling it a “criminal organization”:

I am speaking about a criminal organization with Constitutional immunity, with legal immunity, about the criminal organization of super-corrupt prosecutors and judges who know that they won’t pass the vetting and work the whole day to grab what they can grab [kap ça të kapësh]. About them I’m talking.

A day earlier, the High Prosecutorial Council (KLP) had asked Prime Minister Rama not to prejudice the judicial process in the Pula case. The European Commission called for any “suspicions of criminal offenses that any prosecutor has allegedly committed [to] be reported to the Serious Crimes Prosecutor.”