TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Thousands of Albanians protesting the brief arrest of former President Sali Berisha hurled firecrackers, shouted slogans and smashed windows of the main government building Wednesday.
Berisha was detained about 1:30 a.m. after his followers stormed a court house Tuesday night in the northern town of Tropoja and set it on fire. Riot police opened fire, killing at least two people and wounding two others seriously.
The former president was released before dawn. Hours later, he summoned about 2,000 supporters to a rally on the city's main Skanderbeg Square, where he denounced the shooting as a "massacre." He called the dead and wounded "the last victims of Communist terror in Albania."
Berisha urged supporters to turn out for a government-sponsored concert Wednesday night, making Albania's World War II liberation from Nazi occupation, to shout slogans in support of "freedom and democracy."
During the rally, Berisha's rowdy supporters threw firecrackers at passing vehicles and later marched down a main boulevard to the Interior Ministry and to the building housing the offices of Prime Minister Ilir Meta, where they hurled stones and smashed windows.
Police made no effort to stop the protest, and the crowd dispersed later without serious incidents.
Tensions have been rising here in the Balkans' poorest and most unstable country since controversial local elections last month, which international observers said were marred by serious problems.
Berisha's party trailed the Socialists in most of the local contests. Berisha demanded new elections in several districts but the request was denied.
After the fall of Communism in 1992, Berisha was elected as the country's first noncommunist president four years later. Nationwide riots broke out in 1997 after pyramid investment schemes collapsed, depriving many Albanians of their life savings. Berisha resigned after internationally sponsored elections brought his archrival Fatos Nano and the Socialists to power.