Fredis Beleris, a former ethnic Greek mayor of an Albanian town whose imprisonment on vote-buying charges has strained Albanian-Greek ties, speaks after his release on probation in Himara, southwestern Albania, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — A former ethnic Greek mayor of an Albanian town, whose imprisonment on vote-buying charges has strained Albanian-Greek ties, has been released on probation, his office and a lawyer said Monday.

Fredis Beleris was freed after a court in Fier, 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital, Tirana, where he was serving a two-year sentence, accepted his request for early release, lawyer Eugen Gjyzari said.

Scores of supporters rallied to celebrate his freedom in his hometown of Hiamara. They gathered in front of the office of the Democratic Union of the Greek Minority, known as Omonoia, a social, political and cultural organization that promotes the rights for the Greek minority in Albania.

Beleris, 51, was arrested two days before the May 14, 2023, municipal elections in Himara, a town populated by ethnic Greeks on what has been dubbed the Albanian Riviera, a coastal region with burgeoning tourist development that has been rife with property disputes. He was charged and convicted of offering about 40,000 Albanian leks (360 euros, $390) to buy eight votes.

The case against Beleris has strained relations between Tirana and Athens, with Greece threatening to hold up Albania’s bid to join the European Union.

Beleris and Athens have claimed his conviction was politically motivated. Albanian officials strongly rejected those claims, citing the independence of the judiciary.

In June, Beleris, a dual Albanian-Greek national, was elected to the European Parliament with Greece’s governing conservative party, and was given a five-day leave from prison to attend the parliament’s opening session in Strasbourg a month later.

Writing on his Facebook page, Beleris thanked Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for including him on his party’s ballot, which he said “changed the course of my history.”

Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis called Beleris' release “certainly a positive development.”

“This doesn’t mean we’ll forget the (previous) 17 months and the severity of what happened,” he told a press briefing. “Because in the person of Fredis Beleris the Greek government sees all the Greek citizens, all the Greek ethnic minority in Albania which we will continue to support.”

Beleris said that after pursuing justice at all levels in Albania, he would appeal his case to the European Court of Human Rights, saying "I have been crippled by the Albanian regime.”

“But now, exercising the duties of the Greek MEP, I will be able to focus on the issues of the Greek ethnic minority and the rule of law, without fear but only with passion,” he wrote.

After Beleris was stripped of his title, convicted and imprisoned, an early election was held in Himara for the post of mayor, which was won by the governing Socialist Party candidate.

In the aftermath of the fall of Albania’s communist regime in the early 1990s, property that had previously been seized by the state was distributed among residents. But this often led to disputes over ownership claims, and there have been allegations of ethnic bias in land distribution.

Beleris has claimed the case against him was an attempt by Socialist Party’s Prime Minister Edi Rama to retain control of Himara and its potential for lucrative future property development

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Associated Press writer Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Greece, contributed to this report.

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