Smoke bombs in parliament as Albania’s former leader stripped of immunity

Supporters protest as former president and prime minister Sali Berisha faces probable arrest over corruption allegations

To the jeers of his loyal MPs, who lit coloured flares in protest, Albania’s parliament has voted to strip the country’s former president of his legal immunity after he was charged with corruption.

Sali Berisha, 79, who dominated Albanian politics in the early 1990s as head of state and again as conservative prime minister between 2005 and 2013, now faces probable arrest and, if found guilty, a sentence of between four and 12 years in jail.