Saimir Maloku
Memorie.al/publishes some of the unknown stories of Sajmir Maloku, a former military engineer who graduated with a ‘Gold Medal’ at the University of Tirana, who was arrested by the State Security on May 13, 1976, in the presence of 600 people in a large movie theater in the city of Burrell, accused of being a “potential agent of British Intelligence and of agitation and propaganda against popular power and the communist regime.”
Regarding the real reason for his arrest, Sajmir Maloku testifies: “Because the Albanian Public Television broadcast only 4 hours of television broadcasts per day, in 1970, reading a lot of foreign scientific literature, I managed to build a simple electronic television device. (converters of UHF Band to VHF TV signals). This invention of mine made it possible for the Albanian people in the future to watch freely the shows of the Italian and Yugoslav television stations of the UHF Band, especially in the mountainous and coastal areas of our country.
The first question the investigator asked me in the first investigative session was: “You are a famous Western spy, just like Mata Hari. “Tell us, you filthy enemy, your agency activity with the Secret Agencies of 17 Foreign Countries of the West and the World”. This is because the State Security had great doubts about my meetings with foreign tourists over 8 years and the numerous postal correspondences with philatelists of the above countries. Today this investigator is alive.
During a search of our home in Tirana and my hotel closet in Burrell City, State Security found and retrieved the Holy Books of the Bible and Quran in English; many old English books and magazines; some dictionaries and blocks with sketches of modern television antennas; my electronic television equipment with two transistors and a television signal amplifier; etc. “
All these and other events of his life, from: childhood, schooling, youth period with life in Tirana in the early ’70s, pursuit and surveillance by the State Security, graduation, appointment as a military liaison engineer in a department of Burrel, arrest, trial and public unmasking, investigation, prison, etc., Sajmir Maloku has summarized in a book entitled “HOW I SURVIVED IN THE COMMUNIST HELL” (Publication of EMAL in Albanian and English), parts of which he has given for publication exclusively for Memorie.al
Continued from the previous issue
In those years, for fear of the State Security, even those few families in the capital who had televisions, kept the doors of their houses closed, so that uninvited people would not come inside. But secret State Security informants and collaborators also came to my house, ostensibly to watch foreign TV shows up close, pretending to be our friends. On the other hand, they had made a lot of denunciations and given a lot of information to the State Security, what was happening inside the walls of our house, and what was being talked to by the many people present who also watched the TV shows closely.
Almost this environment had become a major center, certainly secretly for the close pursuit of Western culture in the middle of the capital. My father and family also told people who came that English tourists brought us expensive medicines, which had extended the life of my paralyzed father by a considerable amount. In addition, the foreigners were shown to be wonderful and very humane people, both during the years of the War for the Albanian people and now, coming to the aid of a man, with the problems that my father had. This made my family enjoy the fame and popularity of the numerous inhabitants.
In 1973, the State Security sent my file to Burrel
It was for this reason that my father and I spoke the best words to English tourists, the British people, Queen Elizabeth II, Her Royal Family, etc., when this conversation opened in our house with the many visitors who came to watch foreign programs television. The arrival of many British tourists living in England, Switzerland and Sweden, to visit my home and official correspondence with them during the years 1965-1972, greatly disturbed the State Security. For me, Saimir Malokun, the State Security had opened form files in the Directorate of Internal Affairs of Tirana. In 1973, this directorate sent its materials to me to the State Security of Burrel Department 3711, where a new form file is opened with the note “Secret” Model 4, Category 2 A, with no. 1001 and the hostile nickname “Patoku”.
My father, Reshit Maloku, the Directorate of Internal Affairs of Tirana had opened form files to him since 1970. On 31.07.1971, Reshit Maloku is being actively processed 2 A file no. 4383 Model 4, as potential English Intelligence agent by order of N.D. – Director of the Tirana Branch of Internal Affairs. So, I, Saimir Maloku and Reshit Maloku, my father, by direct order of the Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu and the State Security Directorate of Albania, were actively involved in 2 A, as potential agents of the British Intelligence and were convicted as an agent group incredibly dangerous and with shooting.
The creation of secret family or personal files of category 2 A, means that that person could be arrested at any time, even without the order of the prosecutor and the State investigator. My family file was full of information gathered over the years by collaborators and State Security informants in Tirana. Time showed that there were dozens of State Security informants and many citizens, living in Tirana and Burrel, who had given information and statements, accusing me and my family “of agency and hostile activities against the popular power.”
Many of these statements and information were false and full of unbelievable slander, which greatly aggravated the punishment and torture inflicted on me, as well as the persecution of my family. I must declare that all these tourists who came to my house, were wonderful people and quite humanitarian. They always told us: “You are a small and wonderful people and you live in a very picturesque place where you are distinguished for great natural resources”. They did not like to talk about politics or get state information at all. They were loving people and interested in learning the Albanian language and Albanian customs in folk costumes or in cooking traditional Albanian dishes.
Meanwhile, informants and the State Security slandered my family and these foreign tourists. As I mentioned before, on July 12, 2018, the Authority for Information of Former State Security Documents on my birthday and in the presence of many ambassadors of European Union countries, media and many former political prisoners , opened publicly my file with the note: “Top secret” Model 4, Category 2 A, no. 1001 for Saimir Maloku.
While I was given the hostile nickname “Patoku”, as an object of preliminary processing so as not to reveal that I was followed and monitored in the most secret and sophisticated way by the State Security for highly suspicious links with the British Agency and other Western countries. At the time, State Security suspected that my house was the largest British and Western Agency base in Albania. This is shown by many highly secret State Security documents of those years, which I, in a very concise way, am informing you about some of them in an accurate, as original and complete way as possible, and which are very tendentious and full of filthy fabrications and slanders against me and my family:
“Patoku”, the nickname given to me by the Security and the British tourist in our house
(Patoku – hostile nickname of S. Maloku) 124 1) Full information provided by A.D. in the presence of two officers of the First Counterintelligence Directorate, named J.S. and R.B. on July 15, 1972 in Tirana, is as follows: I named A.D. inform that on July 4, 1972, in the morning, in the house of Reshit Maloku, street “Shyqyri Bërxolli”, no. 17, Tirana, located behind the Turkish embassy, a Swedish tourist went with his wife. Reshiti at that time was hospitalized in Tirana Hospital. At home, as far as I know, was Reshit’s wife and second son, named Saimir Maloku, who is currently a student at the University of Tirana in engineering and speaks English.
The above-mentioned tourist found the address through a sketch, which he gave with him before coming to Albania to an English tourist, who was in Albania two or three years ago and got in touch with the persons of of this family at that time being accompanied by an Albanian. Reshit’s third son, named Fatos Maloku, who is currently a soldier in Berat, also corresponded with the Englishman in question. From what I could learn, after the Swedish tourist, who had been to Reshit’s house on July 4, 1972, had left, he had seen the photo of Fatos, without knowing him personally, but according to the data of the English tourist, he immediately said that “this is Fatos”.
Denunciation of A.D.: Saimiri met with the English tourist at the lake “
He took a picture of Fatos with him. Fatos came home after a few days. (A.D. lied about Fatos because the picture was mine, after the tourist knew me). About the above family of Resh Maloku, as I heard a few years ago, the second son, Saimiri, being in the big Park at the Artificial Lake, and fishing, met an Englishman, who is explained as the reason for knowing of this family with the Englishman as two years ago and with the Swede dated July 4, 1972.
Reshit graduated from the Fultz American Technical School. (A.D. lies, that I have never fished and I met the English tourist in 1965 in the great Park of Tirana called the Park or Garden “Youth”). As far as I know, the Swedish tourist brought glasses, gambling cards and a lot of medication. It is also a handheld radio, but this is not correct. (Here A.D. leaves doubts about radio transmitters). Also, as far as I know, the day the Swedish tourist went to Reshit’s family, Saimiri, at the request of the Swede, went and bought two books. I do not know who bought them and in what language they were. I learned the above information from my family and mostly from my wife H.D.
(AD lies because these two tourists were not Swedes, but British citizens, working and living in Switzerland. His name was KB, who worked for the International Monetary Fund and came to Albania several times and then, in May 1986 as well as in 1994, invited by the Albanian government). Below is the assessment given by the two State Security officers, who write: The information provided is of operational interest for the fact that the “Swedish” tourist, based on data such as finding the house through a sketch, the immediate recognition of Fatos and taking his photograph (this is for me, Saimir), sending Saimir to buy books, this tourist must be an English intelligence agent and must have come to our country on a certain assignment.
On the other hand, Reshit’s family where the “tourist” went (especially the boys), seems to be interested in discovering the English for the jobs, which they are: Saimiri officer and now studying at the university, while Fatos is a soldier. This information was printed in three copies, which will be sent to the State Security Directorate, the Army Security Directorate and the First Counterintelligence Directorate in Tirana.
“Foreign tourists with a sketch, found the house of the Maloku family”
2) Operational note dated 13.09.1972, of the meeting that the two officers of the Counterintelligence Directorate, respectively R.B. and N.Ç. have had with A.D. to provide further clarifications regarding the denunciation he has made about the so-called Reshit Maloku and his two sons. Aty A.D. explains that his denunciation on 15 July 1972, had been made according to records by his wife H.D. and has no gender connection with Reshit Maloku family, but are old neighbors. What caught my attention, said A.D., was the fact that these two foreign visitors, man and woman, without ever being in Albania, through a sketch came exactly to Saimir’s house.
How did they know this family according to the recommendation given to them by the English tourist who had been to Albania before? How did they know that Reshit was ill and they brought him medicine for the concrete disease he had? “They gave him gifts as well as a handheld radio, as my wife H.D. told me.” On behalf of the State Security officers, A.D. was told that he tactfully talked to his wife to find out details about the gifts the tourists brought to the Maloku family. For this his wife H.D. should be tactful to talk to Reshit’s wife telling him that if their health improves from their medication and, if they are good, ask again.
Also, A.D. I told him to be interested in learning who enters and who leaves Reshit’s house; who the other neighbors are and what relations he has with them; if there have been other instances that visitors from England or America have come to Resh Maloku’s house; who they are and when they came. Also, in this operative note, the name list of the tourist group was verified, which also has the photos of each tourist who had come during July 1972 in Tirana and was shown to A.D. Also here is the list of many tourists and foreign citizens residing in England, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, USA, etc., who from 1964 onwards, have had postal correspondence with our family.
Denunciations of this nature for my family meetings with British tourists are numerous made by Security informants and collaborators, such as….! / Memorie.al
Continues tomorrow
