Three people were killed and one injured in an attack that occurred on the evening of July 20, 2024, which shocked the city of Memaliaj.
The incident occurred at around 23:20 in a bar in neighborhood no. 3, in front of the Memaliaj Municipality building.
The target of the assassination attempt was Shyqyri Kalemi, the father of Andrea Kalemi, who did not survive the wounds of the 6 bullets he was shot with.
Also killed were the 36-year-old waiter, Gledian Muka , and one of the bar's customers, 47-year-old Marsel Çela, two innocent victims who were in the bar at the time of the incident.
Artur Kalemi, Andrea Kalemi's uncle, was also injured.
He was sitting at a table outside with his brother Shyqyri Kalemi, when they were shot at with a Kalashnikov rifle.
But what happened that evening of July 21, 2024 in the city of Memaliaj?
The tragedy occurred precisely at the bar where Gledian Muka had been serving as a waiter and bartender for some time while awaiting a lucky answer from the American lottery.
Hamza Muka , the father of waiter Gledian Muka, recounts: On July 24, the American lottery came out and they asked for his documents. But the son had passed away on July 21.
A positive answer which, unfortunately for him, arrived only a few days after he was cruelly separated from life. In what is now known as the Memaliaj massacre that took place in this city in the late hours of July 21, 2024.
What was that previously unheard of massacre in this once mining town, but which had long since lost its buzz and fallen into a deep silence due to depopulation?
Who were the real targets tonight?
And what are the clashes in which the Kalemi family is involved, which led to numerous casualties in a matter of months?
A story that is difficult to trace, but which seems to have first come to light with one of the most shocking assassinations that had occurred in Tirana.
That of execution on June 11, 2022, by means of a remote-controlled explosion of a car in which Aleksandër Sadikaj was driving.
The attack took place at noon on this date near the Sauk roundabout in Tirana, which took the life of the then 27-year-old man on the way to the hospital.
Sadikaj, otherwise known as 'Sanço', a character until now unknown to the general public, but who hid behind him a long criminal activity, mainly in the cultivation and trafficking of narcotics.
Who had often crossed the border between Greece and Albania in such matters.
It is said that he was also involved in crimes against health, murder and injury.
But a breakdown in negotiations between him and controversial businessman Edmond Papa, who until recently had been the closest partner in such businesses, seems to have spilled the beans between the two and resulted in a savage revenge that spared no one.
Initially, Sadikaj himself, who was also a nephew of the Kalemi family in Memaliaj.
Who, in addition to his own surname, also used that of his uncles.
Known for their influence in the area, as well as their economic and political power, managing to win important tenders, including cleaning up the city.
But the killing of Sadikaj, in a clear act of demonstration of force by the opposing side, had only just lifted the lid on the arsonist plot between the Kalemajs, already on one side, and Edmond Pape and the men standing next to him.
Something that was also seen in the swift revenge of the group that had family and social ties with Aleksandër Sadikaj.
Who, before the year 2022 even ended, executed businessman Edmond Papa himself in Tirana.
This incident occurred on December 16 of this year, in a bar in the Selita area of the capital.
While the Pope was waiting below his brother's apartment, his mother, who would accompany him to the hospital that day, came out to perform some medical examinations.
But this was certainly not the starting point, nor the end of a river of blood that had already just found its bed.
This is because Aleksandër Sadikaj had many clashes.
Clashes that were also revealed from conversations already declassified by Greek law enforcement authorities, on the Sky Ecc application.
Where it turns out that Aleksandër Sadikaj was the organizer of the murder of Ari Papa on February 26, 2021, in a bar in a neighborhood of Athens.
Data that was only recently made public by the Greek media.
Ari Papa, a character linked to drug trafficking, resisted this assassination attempt, but was executed a few months later in Athens, by an assassin said to have come from Albania.
Greek Investigations
'During the analysis of Sky Ecc application messages, the active role of Aleksandër Sadikaj or Aleksandër Kalemi and Denis Grabockës in an attempted murder, which occurred on February 26, 2021, against Albanian citizen Aristidis Papas or Ari Papa, came to light.
The motive for the attempted murder against him was revenge for the incident of December 14, 2020 against Viljan Boraj, known as 'Giannakis', which occurred in the Patisias area of Athens, in which Aleksandër Sadikaj's cousin, 16-year-old Rubin Kalemi, a passenger in the vehicle in which Boraj was traveling, was wounded with a gun.
But it was actually the failed assassination attempt on Ari Papa, or the suspicion that his elimination a few months later was carried out by Aleksandër Sadikaj, that led to the signing of the latter's death warrant.
The truth is that Aleksandër Sadikaj was eliminated just a year later, in the most macabre form that everyone now knows.
But meanwhile, investigations in Albania also brought to light the conflicts that Sadikaj had with Edmond Papa and a much-discussed crime figure known as Ledjan Allushaj.
Immediately after Sadikaj's execution, the execution of the man thought to have ordered Sadikaj's murder, businessman Edmond Papa, was not delayed.
From those who are thought to have been Sadikaj's friends.
Albano Velo as well as 45-year-old Andrew Bode.
The latter was arrested in August 2024, when he was found hiding in Memaliaj, in the Kalemi family, where Aleksandër Sadikaj was also a nephew.
The arrest of Bode and Adriatik Kalemi that occurred after the Memaliaj massacre, where investigators believe they were preparing to retaliate and take revenge on their opponents.
Hamza Muka: From the event I learned something, which is said orally, about the enmities that the Kalemi family had. Like all other families, the Kalemaj family came to my family to express their condolences. We have no problem, neither with the Kalemi family, nor with any other family in Memaliaj.
But this was not the first assassination attempt involving members of the Kalemi family.
On January 12, 2024, just a few months before the Memaliaj massacre, Zamir Kalemi, another important member of this family, fell victim to a gun attack at the Selita overpass in Tirana.
The 'Smart' car he was traveling in was shot at while moving by another 'Nissan' vehicle with stolen license plates.
Which was coming parallel to his car, at a close distance, where 13 bullets were fired at him.