By Prof. Dr. Bardhyl Chipi
Memorie.al / The regime of the communist dictatorship in our country, in order to preserve and strengthen its rule, from time to time eliminated its collaborators, such as those who expressed opposing opinions, or without reason, or with false accusations. Indeed, for this way of ruling, the communist dictatorship used the bloody experience of the dictator Stalin of the Soviet Union, whom Enver Hoxha considered his spiritual leader. These murders began to be carried out during the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War in the years 1941-1944, secretly, or through espionage, as well as on the side of orders, the documents of which have been discovered for a part of them.
After 1944, these purges continued again, but now more by way of trials with false accusations, as it turns out in the various documents. The top leaders of the regime, in these cases, were sentenced to death, imprisonment, exile, etc.
In some of these victims, their forensic examinations were also carried out, such as those of the three highest leaders of the Army, after the discovery of their corpses, buried in a secret place. But some of these eliminations may have been carried out by the victims themselves, who committed forced suicide.
In this case, I think it would be necessary to explain that suicide means the action of a person to cause his own death. The reasons that a person commits suicide can be detention fear of discrimination, humiliation, loss of money, etc., as well as mental illnesses and other mental disorders.
Among the persons indoctrinated by communism, as were the leaders of the previous regime in general, the feeling of humiliation was even greater in these cases, because they were being attacked, discredited and unjustly punished, as profaners of this doctrines embedded in their minds, simultaneously losing all the privileges that were given to you because of the leadership positions they held.
In these situations, of extreme desperation, they carried out their self-elimination, for which they were punished by the Party, despite the fact that at that time, suicide was punished as an act of treason against the country and the Party. But it may have happened that some of these leaders of the regime have managed to withstand the fierce pressure of the dictatorship, made against them, perhaps even publicly, and have not accepted to eliminate themselves through suicide. Under these circumstances, it is very likely that the regime has organized their secret murder, to present it as suicide (simulated suicide).
These doubts are reinforced by the previous experience of the communist dictatorship, which had organized the secret elimination, or through orders, of its opponents. I have analyzed some of these cases, mainly in relation to their scientific evidence, such as those of the deaths of Mehmet Shehu and Nako Spiru, who were two of the top leaders of the communist state.
Some other similar cases were the death of the president of Albania, Omer Nishani, and the suicides of two high-ranking local leaders of the communist state: Pirro Gusho (first secretary of the Fier district Party Committee) and Zenun Shahollari (chairman of Korҁa District Executive Committee), which I am analyzing in this study.
In contrast to the deaths of Mehmet Shehu and Nako Spiru, where autopsies were not performed, in these three deaths all regular forensic examinations were performed, including their autopsies. In the press, the media and the various documents, published after the 1990s, as far as I have been able to consult, from these recent cases only for the death of Omer Nishan, the suspicion has emerged that his death was not a suicide, as it resulted in the investigative documents of his death, but a murder.
Here is how the scientific evidence of these two deaths is presented:
Omer Nishani (1887 – 1954)
Graduated in Medicine, originally from Gjirokastra and known to Enver Hoxha, he was the first president of the communist state from 1946 until 1953, when he resigned. This is because in a joint meeting of the Political Bureau, the presidium of the People’s Assembly and the Council of Ministers, his resignation and replacement with Haxhi Lleshi was recommended. After that, a year later, two days before the elections for the People’s Assembly, for which he was not even proposed as a candidate, on May 25, 1954, he was found dead in the villa where he lived, which was declared as death; “after a serious illness”.
In fact he had been suffering for a long time from a bad disease of the liver, incurable, accompanied by swelling of the abdomen from accumulated water (ascites) which from time to time removed it, and pains, which had depressed him greatly.
But the real cause of his death was kept secret until the 1980s, when the investigative file of Omer Nishan was excluded from the list of secret documents. According to this file published in our press, it is determined that his death was suicide. But after the 1990s, many hypotheses have been raised, according to which Omer Nishan’s death was a murder.
Scientific medical and forensic evidence of the investigation file of the death of Omer Nishan
On May 25, 1954, at 11 p.m., Dr. Omer Nishani killed himself with two gunshots. The wounds that had caused death were close to the heart; the weapon found was of the German type, belonging to Omer Nishan. In the minutes of the inspection of the scene, it is noted that the event took place on the third floor, in room no. 4.
There, the victim is found lying on her back; her position was moved by the doctors after death. Two shell casings were found, one of which was on the bed. There is also a hole in the wall, from a bullet that went there. On the other side of the wall, there is a letter with an envelope.
In the examination of the corpse on May 25, 1954, 24:00, i.e. an hour after the event, by doctors Petro Cani and Aleko Bozo, it is noted that they found the body lying on its back, with its mouth open. Clothes soaked in blood. And so is the mattress. The pulse is absent. The distance of the wounds was 2 cm., one below the chest and the other further away. They bled non-stop.
Two wounds appeared on the left shoulder, 1.5 cm apart. Blood flows here too. Three reasons for death are listed: the two wounds, the discharged weapon in contact with the body, the deceased had suffered from ascites.
The next day, on May 26, 1954, in the Department of Normal Anatomy of the Higher Medical Institute, an autopsy was performed by a Russian doctor and Albanian doctors: Petro Cani, Ferdinand Paparisto and Spase Trimҁev (secretary), in which the two wounds were seen with a distance of 1.1 cm., from each other; the stomach was maximally filled with food; the wounds had an anterior-posterior direction.
Death was caused by massive hemorrhage and pleuro-pulmonary shock. From the statements of the witnesses, one of them, Mehmet Grori, born in 1880, the landscape gardener of the house for two years, at 21.00, was warned by the nurse and the cook to go to the third floor, because of a noise they heard them; he immediately went there, where he found Omer Nishan, lying down, moaning, etc.; he put the gun on the dresser.
The doctor arrived together with the nurse, who asked him to leave the room. The doctor gave him a needle. After a few moments, Nishani is dead……! According to the investigation file, this event was classified as suicide, based on a reasoning of 6 points: the place of the event was examined, a forensic examination was carried out, the weapon belonged to the murdered person, a ballistics examination of the weapon was carried out, which resulted in the ability to well, the witnesses were questioned, an epigram was found in the apartment of the murdered man, according to which it was proved that he had killed himself.
In the hypotheses that have been raised that the death of Omer Nishan was a murder, organized by the dictator Enver Hoxha, a number of reasons are mentioned, which are as follows:
– The file has been manipulated, to present the death as a suicide,
– The murder was committed to cover the secrets that Omer Nishani might have had, about the crimes of Enver Hoxha, during the War and later, especially with the death sentences of his opponents, which were approved, being signed by Omer Nishani as well , President of the country in those years.
-Death came from two gunshots, which is impossible to happen in a suicide.
– The testimony of Omer Nishani’s ex-wife’s friend, Rozvita, also of Austrian nationality, who together with Rozvita, a long time later without the incident, were visited by the landscape gardener of Omer Nishani’s house. He told you what he saw, that Omer Nishani was killed by the eldest son of one of the vice-presidents of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly (the uneducated one), certainly not for personal reasons, but for the implementation of the party’s duty. She claimed to have given this testimony, many years after the death of landscape gardener.
If we analyze them, mainly their medical aspects, we can make these remarks. Regarding the claim that the investigative file was manipulated, which may be true, it must be said that the forensic examination of the corpse was carried out, first at the scene and then at the Department of Normal Anatomy of the Medical Institute where it was sent body.
One Soviet doctor and four Albanian doctors participated in these examinations. That this action was carried out, I have also confirmed this, in an inspection that I carried out on the remains of the corpse of Omer Nishan, during an exhumation process, many years later.
In this examination on my part, carried out more to note the identifying marks that matched those of Omer Nishan, I found that the incomplete skeletal parts were quite eaten away and decayed by the long time that had passed after of death, while the skull was presented with its cap detached, according to a straight horizontal and circular line from the rest of it.
This proved that the head had also been opened, which is a common operation of an autopsy. The examination of the corpse at the scene and at the Medical Institute was performed, apart from a Russian doctor, by 4 Albanian doctors, who, as far as I know and informed, were of high professional and moral character.
In fact, they were not Forensic Medicine experts. Not all the data of their examination are recorded in the file. But from what is given there, such as the direction of the shots fired into the victim’s body, from front to back, show that the directions were horizontal and not oblique.
This is also reinforced by finding the bullet hole in the wall. Usually the horizontal shooting direction is more in favor of suicide. Similarly, the description of the scene of the epigram letter, if it was not fabricated, reinforces this version.
As for the argument, that this death is murder, because suicide is impossible to accomplish with two shots, it does not stand. In forensic medicine, cases are often encountered that have to do with what is called; “ability to act, after receiving mortal injuries”.
From the literature and our practice, we have come across such cases, when the mortally wounded victims walked, ran, spoke, or attacked the aggressor. One such case, which I had years ago, was that of a person who shot himself with a firearm, in the region of the heart, while sitting in a chair, in the backrest of which, the bullet hole was found.
Then he got up and walked a few meters to lie down on a sofa, where he died. Therefore, even in the case of Omer Nishan, the possibility that he shot himself twice with firearms is not excluded. Finally, the testimony of the Austrian citizen, who was told by the housekeeper of the victim’s house that Omer Nishani was killed by the eldest son of one of the vice presidents of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, is an indirect testimony, taken before many years, where it has not been shown how the moment of the murder happened.
Also, today it is impossible to confirm the statements of this citizen, because the witness is dead; likewise, it is not known where the citizen who gave it is and if she is still alive. Under these conditions, its value remains highly questionable. For all the above reasons, as well as the very long time that has passed, I think that from a scientific point of view, it cannot be proven that Omer Nishan’s death was a murder, as is claimed now.
Zenun Shahollari
He was the chairman of the Executive Committee of the People’s Council of Korҁa district. On December 20, 1973, around 1:00 p.m., in the building of the Executive Committee of the CP, the chairman of that committee, Zenun Shahollari, aged 43, was found in his office, seriously wounded in the head and died shortly after. , with all the first medical aid that was given to him in the country.
He carried out this action in a moment of desperation, due to the harsh criticism that was given to him by one of the main leaders of the communist regime. In this case too, I was recognized by the forensic doctors who participated in the examination of his corpse, at the scene and then in the autopsy performed in the morgue. He had shot himself in the head.
On the right temple and on the top of the head just to the left, there were two single gunshot holes, consisting mainly of a puncture with a radiating fracture of the skull and with extensive brain damage; the shot is made with the muzzle of the gun barrel, kissed with the right temple and directed from right to left, from bottom to top and from front to back; death resulted from severe traumatic shock, caused by skull fractures and brain damage, accompanied by hemorrhage.
This shooting direction usually occurs in suicides, accompanied by a massive external hemorrhage that was seen especially in the room where the event took place. So, this is also a pure case of self-elimination by suicide of a senior leader of the regime, due to the shock he suffered from the strict pressure exerted on him. Memorie.al
