By Hajro Limaj
Memorie.al / It was the end of August 1987. I was on duty in Istanbul. On the coast of the Bosphorus, we were talking with the Consul General of Albania, Ali Ymeri. As we were finishing the conversation, the radio operator brought me a top secret, encrypted radiogram. After I deciphered it, it turned out that; I was ordered from the center in Tirana, that upon arrival in Constanta, Romania, I had to join the operation led by Nikolaq Ziu, deputy director of Political Intelligence in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I was never told what the operation was. The next afternoon, the ship I was traveling on docked at the piers of the largest port in the Balkans, in Constanta. As for curiosity, this port is covered by fog almost most of the time.
With the captain of the ship, we went to the relevant agency and submitted the necessary documents. Here we drank the welcome coffees offered by the port authorities. As soon as we returned to the harbor entrance, the two diplomatic cars of our embassy from Bucharest arrived. We squeezed into the second car.
When we reached the escalators of the ship, Nikollaq Ziu, the officer of the special unit of the Rapid Intervention, Muharrem Abazi, who had come from Tirana, and Vullnet Thanasi, the arrested person, got off from the first car, who was handcuffed throw away the jacket.
While from the car where we got in, the wife got out with handcuffs and the two sons of Vullnet. For their arrangement, two special rooms were arranged.
In one, only Volunneti was placed, while in the other, his wife and two sons. Strict security measures were taken for Vullneti. Arrested, handcuffed, steel helmet on head and lying on the bed, chained on both legs and both hands. While the wife was only with tied hands. The measures were extremely strict, as if we were dealing with a terrorist group of high global risk.
During the day, the two small children, very very beautiful, stood on the deck of the ship. When we left for home, especially in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, we increased surveillance and security to the maximum, because it was thought that he might be a capital agent and that foreign intelligence services would intervene, to save him.
The three of us: Nikollaqi, me and Muharrem, performed the service near Vullnet, for 4 hours without interruption. I knew Volulnet to some extent, when he was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
I knew quite well that he was the nephew of Hysni Kapo, the secretary of the Central Committee of the Labor Party of Albania and a member of the Political Bureau. Enver Hoxha’s first deputy in the party line, who died on September 23, 1979, from a serious illness in a clinic in Paris, France. I also knew that for two years, Vullneti had been the first secretary of our embassy in Czechoslovakia.
I knew my father and mother, Uncle Thanas and Afërdita, because they were friends with my uncle, Xhemil Selam (Limaj), who had been an adviser to Hysni Kapo and then a diplomat in Turkey and Egypt. They were also good neighbors. With tears in his eyes and humiliated, Vullneti told me what had happened to him.
On August 21, 1987, on the border between Austria and Czechoslovakia, at the Austrian customs, in the trunk of the diplomatic car, a customs officer found a quantity of cigarette sticks, for which they blocked him, considering it a smuggling operation at that time.
The Foreign Ministry of Albania had been notified and they had ordered our two diplomats in Vienna to take it from the customs and via Austria, bring it by plane to Tirana.
On the way to Vienna, he had punched the diplomat who was driving the car, Kujtim Myzyri, after in the conversation he was having with his colleague, he had heard the order of the Minister of the Interior, Hekuran Isai, that; “to bring him alive or dead, at any cost to Albania”.
Then he got out of the car, re-entered Czechoslovakia. After two days, he was back in Prague, near his family. There had been many problems here, especially the arrest and removal of the embassy staff, an operation that had been directed by Nikolaq Ziu.
After two days of leaving the embassy, when he was traveling with his family to the Prague airport, to finally leave for Sweden, with the help of the Czechoslovak police, he was arrested at the airport and handed over to the Albanian authorities.
This was the picture of this event, which swelled and grew more, by the way in which it was communicated and dealt with, than the mistake he made, which today cannot even be thought of being treated like that.
After four days and nights of sailing through the Black Sea, the Bosphorus Strait, the Marmara Sea, the Aegean Sea, with a turn at the end of Crete, we entered the waters of the Ionian Sea.
When he had personal needs, we would call Muharrem, the Special Forces officer, who would take him to the toilet, only freeing his hands, but not removing his helmet from his head.
When we arrived at the piers of Durrës, the deputy minister of the interior and the general director of the State Security Zylyftar Ramizi, as well as many other authorities in this field, were waiting for us. When they brought him down the stairs of the ship to the quay, Zylyftari hit him lightly, on the helmet of his head.
For this “crime” and charge, the court sentenced Vullnet by firing squad, while the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, led by Ramiz Alia, reduced him to 25 years in prison. While his wife and two children were interned in Burrel. His mother, Afërdita, Hysni Kapo’s sister, suffered a serious stroke and shortly passed away.
Vullneti served his sentence in the prison of Qafë-Bari, about 18 km. away from the city of Puka, built between mountain gorges.
“There were 500 political prisoners in this prison, who were sentenced to over 25 years in prison. These prisoners worked in the mine galleries in three shifts. The camp was surrounded by three rows of barbed wire, over 4 meters high. The siege had about 20 watchtowers, at a height of over 8 meters, where the soldiers were equipped with all kinds of weapons.
In this prison were Moisi Miraka, the son of the minister of Zogut Col. Bib Miraka, Viktor Stratoberdha (director of the film ‘Skënderbeu’), Dilaver Noka, Vullnet Thanasi (grandson of Hysni Kapo), Gaspër Gaspri, singer Sherif Merdani, the band’s engineers hostile to the oil of Lipe Nashi, etc.”!
With the chaos of 1997, Vullneti was released from prison and eventually left for Sweden with his family. Today, corruption and smuggling have invaded the state and politics. No government officials or politicians have been arrested and punished for these illegal activities, while in those times, Volunt was punished so harshly. Memorie.al
