TIRANA, Albania -- 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 released from prison after a court in Fier, located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the Albanian capital, Tirana, granted his request for early release, according to his lawyer Eugen Gjyzari.

A celebratory gathering to mark his freedom is planned in his hometown of Hiamara, organized by the Democratic Union of the Greek Minority, known as Omonoia. Omonoia is a social, political, and cultural organization that advocates for the rights of the Greek minority in Albania.

Beleris, 51, was apprehended two days prior to the May 14, 2023, municipal elections in Himara. Himara, situated on what is known as the Albanian Riviera, is a town populated by ethnic Greeks and has been witnessing rapid tourist development and numerous property disputes. He was charged and found guilty of offering approximately 40,000 Albanian leks (360 euros, $390) in exchange for eight votes.

The legal case against Beleris has strained the relationship between Tirana and Athens , with Greece threatening to hinder Albania's application to join the European Union.

Beleris and the Greek government have maintained that his conviction was politically motivated. Albanian officials have firmly rejected these claims, citing the independence of the judiciary.

In June, Beleris, a citizen of both Albania and Greece, was elected to the European Parliament with Greece’s governing conservative party. He was granted a five-day leave from prison to attend the parliament’s inaugural session in Strasbourg a month later.

Writing on his Facebook page, Beleris expressed gratitude to Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for including him on his party’s ballot, a decision that he said “changed the course of my life.”

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

“This doesn’t mean we’ll forget the (previous) 17 months and the seriousness 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 declared he would appeal his conviction to the European Court of Human Rights, stating that he was "crippled by the Albanian regime."

“Now, fulfilling my duties as a Greek MEP, I will be able to focus on the issues of the Greek minority and the rule of law, without fear but with passion,” he wrote.

After Beleris was removed from office , convicted, and jailed, an early election was held in Himara for the position of mayor, which was won by the candidate from the ruling Socialist Party .

Following the fall of Albania’s communist government in the early 1990s, property previously seized by the state was distributed among residents. This, however, often resulted in disagreements over ownership, and there have been accusations of ethnic bias in land allocation.

Beleris has argued that the case against him was an attempt by the Socialist Party’s Prime Minister Edi Rama to maintain control of Himara and its potential for lucrative future real estate development.

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

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