By Edward McAllister and Fatos Bytyci
ZVERNEC, Albania, June 13 (Reuters) - When Kostaq Konomi approached what he says is his land on the seafront in southern Albania last month, he was met with a barbed wire fence and men in black uniforms who refused him entry.
The land, he later learned from news reports, was now part of a luxury resort planned by international investors including U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The property, which sits on a hillside of flowering gorse that
slopes down to a deserted cove where cows saunter in the shallows, had been taken away once by the state in communist times, and he could not bear to see that happening again.
"I was ready to get a rifle and start shooting," Konomi, 81, told Reuters. “I was a small boy when I put my feet in that water. Now I am an old man and they say I cannot.”
Konomi is one of a dozen residents from the village of Zvernec who told Reuters that their land was wrongfully sold for development since 2024 by a rival claimant. Several showed Reuters property deeds and tax records that they said supported their assertions. None received compensation.
Reuters found no evidence of wrongdoing by Kushner, who isn't directly involved in the villagers' dispute. The news agency was unable to determine who rightfully owned the various plots, which are subject to an ongoing legal fight.
The villagers' legal claims complicate what is already a contentious multi-billion-euro development on an island and a pristine piece of mainland that includes a protected wetland home to migrating flamingos, seals and sea turtles.
Mass protests erupted this week in the capital Tirana demanding that the work be halted, and the European Union has also expressed concern about the impact on local wildlife.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, who championed the deal in an interview with Reuters this week, asserts that the development is legal and that habitats would be protected.
Kushner did not respond to requests for comment through his investment arm, Affinity Partners.
A company called Sazan Real Estate Development LLC, which is developing the project, did not provide answers to questions about the plans or the land dispute. A spokesperson referred Reuters to a statement posted on X on Friday from the company's chairman, Asher Abehsera.
"Our goal is simple: celebrate Albania’s natural beauty, create jobs, and build something future generations can be proud of," he said.
The spokesperson said Sazan's partners, who include Kushner, were investing in a personal capacity, rather than through Affinity. Reuters was unable to independently confirm this.
JARED AND IVANKA WOOED BY ALBANIAN COAST
Zvernec is on a narrow peninsula separated from the mainland by a lagoon where flamingos flock in summer. The ocean side is lined with empty beaches, olive groves and imposing cliffs.
The scenery won over Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, when they saw the land from a yacht a few years ago.
Rama met them on that trip, and Kushner told him he was interested in investing when they ran into each other again at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Rama told Reuters.
“You are an American investor, and this country is open to every American investor,” Rama said he recalled telling Kushner.
In 2024, Kushner announced the plans on social media with an artist's rendering showing the land covered in a hotel, houses, pools and jetties for yachts.
The group of villagers in their 70s and 80s have other plans. Their lawyer, Kostandin Beko, said they planned to file a court order seeking to halt the project.
Their claims on the land highlight the problems of investing in Albania, where poor record-keeping, complex history and local corruption mean land disputes are common, lawyers and officials said.
LAND DISPUTES A HANGOVER FROM COMMUNIST TIMES
Under Ottoman rule for centuries until 1912, Albania was then cut off from the world for five decades after World War Two by a communist government that fell in the early 1990s.
Properties passed down through generations were requisitioned by the state under communism. When democracy returned, attempts were made to return seized land, but plots were often disputed.
The residents of Zvernec have been in a legal battle with Artur Shehu, who sold the disputed property. He says his family's claim on the land dates back to the Ottoman Empire.
Reuters was unable to reach Shehu or his lawyer, but he told an Albanian TV show last week that his claim on the land was “undisputed”.
Shehu, who said he has lived in Miami for 26 years, told the show that he sold the disputed land to investors through a middleman he did not name, and did not know who had bought it.
Reuters was unable to confirm Shehu's assertions about his rights to the property or the circumstances of the sale.
The Zvernec residents said he had no right to sell. In 2013, an Albanian court ruled that they owned the land. Shehu appealed, and the case remains unresolved, according to the residents' lawyer, Beko, and legal documents related to the case he shared with Reuters.
In a phone call with Reuters on Friday, Rama rejected those concerns.
“Just because there is a court trial does not automatically mean that the property is frozen,” he said.
RESIDENTS MAKE THEIR CLAIMS
The residents showed Reuters what they said were property deeds issued by local authorities dated in the 1990s, when the land was given back to residents after communism.
The residents and their lawyer said they were not consulted before the land was sold off and received no payment.
“We thought Rama would offer us money,” Thoma Kola, 84, said.
He and others said it should not have been sold while subject to a legal dispute.
Protests started when the fence was erected in May, blocking off a large area around Zvernec and restricting sea access. Several people were injured in clashes with private security guards, and footage of the incident went viral.
The fence has since been taken down and the bulldozers that last month cut a new road across the land have gone. It is unclear when work will restart.
Stavri Hysa rents deckchairs and serves beer and burgers to beachgoers in the area. The brief closure of the shorefront reminded him of communist times, when the authorities would only give access for a few months each year.
“When I found out that they had blocked access to the sea, I couldn't sleep for 15 days," he told Reuters as he fought back tears. “I do not agree with giving away parts of the beach. This should be public."
(Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Alex Richardson)
