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, I in 1970, reading a lot of foreign scientific literature, 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” has given for publication exclusively for Memorie.al
Continued from the previous issue
The communist regime in Albania, led by dictator Enver Hoxha, has been the most hated and brutal dictatorship in Europe for 47 years. Therefore, the new generation of the Albanian people and all humanity must know what severe spiritual, health, psychological, moral, physical, financial, family and other punishments, as well as the horrible tortures that the communist regime inflicted on political prisoners in police cells during the time of detention in the buildings of the Branches of Internal Affairs in all cities of our country. Most of the innocent people in our country when they were arrested, interned and deported, had a very painful and touching expression during the communist regime: for me and my family”? “Do whatever you want with me but leave my family alone.”
“I, an innocent victim of State Security torture”
Saimir Maloku was also a victim of these punishments and the terrible tortures of the communist executioners. In my dungeon for about 200 days I experienced death when I had not yet died. As I have pointed out before, I, inspired by the “Anne Frank Diary”, wrote these stories of mine, which today seem to me like a dream, how I survived the communist hell! I did not believe that Communism turned people into “animals”, beat them like animals and kept them isolated worse than the wild animals of the forest and lowered our personality and our human dignity by telling us: “You took the dog the son of the dog “You have become like the puppy of Imperialism and the West.”
Surprisingly, these communists cursed us as if they themselves were crazy veterinarians…!? Also, all my aspirations and dreams to start a family and be happy in those most beautiful years of my life, faded like a meteor in the sky and faded like that flower left without water. My happiness at the most beautiful age, that of youth, turned me into misery. Instead of me experiencing love, I experienced unprecedented violence over my body. Instead of starting a family and having a wedding ring on my hand, metal handcuffs were placed on me. The shadow of old age invaded my youth, because in my head fell the evil snow of Communism, which bleached my beautiful curly and black hair.
The infamous disease of the “Communist Plague” poisoned my sincere and pure soul and transformed my boyish face as if it were no worse, as if it were the pale face of a dead man! Sometimes I did not understand where I lived, in the world of the living or in the world of the dead, because the loneliness in the underground cell was something very terrible and terrifying. This was the most terrible communist hell in the world, where death had far greater values than human life, because you escaped from constant suffering. The tears of joy in my eyes turned to tears of sorrow. I had a tremendous desire to see people, animals, and birds, as well as flower gardens and lush forests and rivers and streams. The sun, moon, and sky disappeared from my sight.
The communist devil took the place of the angel in my soul and in my heart. The paradise of my life became like a hell or hell filled with endless and unbelievable mysteries and horrors. Many of the people I considered friends became my enemies! Instead of being free and enjoying life full of gas and joy like every citizen of Albania, the opposite happened to me, because in my body and soul began unimaginable suffering, as a result of the terrible tortures of communist criminals. Communism arrested me and many young boys, because our fathers had graduated from the American Technical School in Tirana, as well as in Western countries, because we were educated in Western culture and were molded with anti-communist and democratic views.
“Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu ordered my arrest as a ‘dirty enemy”
Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu ordered that I be arrested immediately as a vicious enemy, at a time when I loved the people and was deeply concerned about their suffering. Many Albanian intellectuals were thinking of returning home and starting families with virtuoso men and women, virtuoso boys and girls, after completing their studies at universities in Italy, France, Germany, America, England and ending up in communist hell… The State Security officers arrested us children of these genuine intellectual parents and tortured us, just as migratory birds do, eating and tearing to pieces the most ripe and delicious fruits of the trees. Time has shown that these above intellectuals and their children were the cream or pride of the pro-Western and more democratic intelligence of Albania. The communist regime, by keeping me alone for nearly 200 days in the underground cell and under the most inhumane torture and conditions, committed one of the most serious crimes in human history. This crime must be condemned to this day just like the crimes of the Nazi system, because it was a flagrant violation of the International Covenant on Human Rights everywhere in the world.
This is because some of my communist persecutors are still alive. Perhaps in the world, as well as other people, I broke the norms of human patience and world medicine, that I escaped from madness and certain death. For the past three months, I have been totally isolated from human society, preventing me from seeing sunlight and not being satisfied with fresh air. This has not happened in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald Concentration Camps either. My body was not made of iron or steel because it would rust and deform from the blows of horrible tortures. There in that terrible cell, which was also the greatest experimental invention of the State Security and the communist dictatorship, I saw the world of hell, the world of the devil, the world of loneliness, the world of beasts, the world of madness, the world of torture. , the world of hunger, the world of diseases, the world of communist crime, the world of degrading human dignity, etc.
I was willing to spend my whole life in prison forever, rather than spend this horrible ordeal of suffering in that underground cell where I have the worst memories of life. Let it be like a museum together with other cells and be watched by the new generation and all of humanity. The nostalgics of communism, who are clothed with power, will secretly and camouflagedly try to destroy it in order to eradicate the traces of the most brutal communist persecution in our country. Therefore, I ask the Western Diplomatic Corps, the OSCE Embassy and the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Tirana, to intervene with our Government, to realize this museum made by the “Communist Devil”, where many priests and intellectuals have died.
“Here are the reasons I accuse the communist regime”
Here are the following reasons why I accuse the communist regime of this monstrous and inhuman crime they committed against me. Communism sentenced me to death without the Court ruling. Through the State Security and the Communist Police, he demanded my death through extremely inhumane conditions towards me and my life. These methods of inhuman and barbaric torture were not used even during the Middle Ages. My location was top secret even three months after the trial. Communism described me as one of the most dangerous enemies of Albania, torturing me in a very inhuman way, during the most beautiful years of my youth. He condemned me and made my cell underground, as if it were a coffin or sarcophagus, where the communist devil came every day and told me to die as an enemy of the people and a spy of the West because: “You insulted Enver Hoxha, the hero and God of communism and socialism ”.
These barbarians sentenced me to 10 years in prison, because I wanted the Albanian people to think free, to speak freely, to live free and to move free and why not, even outside the borders of the country. Communism punished me by severing ties with my family and keeping my whereabouts hidden for three months. What was the reason that the State Security kept my location secret for a long time? What was their criminal plan? Now, after 43 years, based on the early state documents of the Communist State Security, I discovered that their criminal plan was my second sentence, (along with my paralyzed father) to death as fictitious agents of the British Intelligence Services or British.
Communism condemned my personality and dignity, slandering the people, as if I was crazy, because, according to them, I had severely insulted the angel of Albanian communism – dictator Hoxha, baptized by the devil Marxism Leninism. Communism condemned me because I wanted to be with full rights like every citizen of Europe and Albania to be a free and democratic country. Communism punished me by beating, torturing and beating me worse than a wild forest animal because I did not admit that I was a British and Western spy. Communism condemned me because I unmasked and opposed dictator Hoxha and the communist regime for their crimes in front of the people, and praised the West, Western culture and music.
Communism punished my lungs, which could barely breathe, being strained by the scanty, polluted, damp air in that underground cell, where the front door was closed incessantly day and night. This caused me to catch a cold and damage my right lung. I slept on the cold, plank floor. Communism punished my stomach and intestines, forbidding me food and denying and forbidding me fruit, pure water and even giving me scandalous little prison food. Communism punished my body and limbs that stood near the cold and damp walls of the cell, all the time even when it was snowing or icy outside, shivering from the cold from lack of clothes, clothes, socks, blankets, mattress etc. This caused me rheumatism, cervical and spinal spondylitis.
Communism blinded my eyes, sitting in an extremely dark environment and with poor natural light, denied me sunlight and human society for months, which caused me the disease of myopia. Communism sentenced me to death through endless and inhuman torture and suffering in the underground cell, which is a flagrant and unprecedented violation of the World Convention on Human Rights. Communism punished my teeth and mouth with the severe disease of scurvy and periodontitis, from lack of vitamins, by banning the foods my family sent me. As a result, due to severe damage to my mouth and teeth from pus infections, it was difficult for me to eat food in the future.
Communism punished my brain by keeping me isolated worse than an animal in a very small environment, where insomnia, terrible hunger, insults under the threat of using electric shock, bitter cold, psychological torture prevailed. I was on the verge of human madness, etc. Communism condemned my eyes and even my ears, because I once watched and listened to foreign television and radio stations, since this regime forgot that I was also a citizen of Europe and the world. Communism secretly sentenced me to a horrible, slow, and cruel death without God’s permission. God had given me life and it was up to Him to take me. Communism punished my skin by leaving me unwashed for seven months, to become infected and seriously ill with the most dangerous diseases, to die destroying my body and my grave.
This caused me numerous skin infections accompanied by redness and pus foci. Communism punished me because it wanted to uproot my soul from my body in the most diabolical, insidious and horrible way, because I had severely insulted the dictator and harshly unmasked the communist regime. Therefore, this bloody regime definitely demanded my death, through the tortures it exercised on me and the endless and inhuman suffering. This physical and psychological violence during the investigation, damaged my brain, causing me insomnia, decreased memory, feeling of fear at bedtime, slurred speech at night and others.
Communism punished me without giving me the indictment; without notifying me and my family of the date and time of the trial; without giving me pencil and paper to keep notes during the trial and to appeal to the Court of Cassation. This was a flagrant violation of the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure of Albania. During the 100 days after the trial, the police stopped me from ventilating my cell. Communism punished me without giving me a lawyer; putting great psychological pressure on the investigator and State Security officers in the courtroom, that if I did not accept the indictment before the Trial Panel, my parents would be interned and I would be sent back to the Investigator; deceiving me on the day of judgment, that they would lead me to sign some old minutes in my workplace, and suddenly put me in the courtroom, so that I would be too unprepared and too perverted; without giving me the waistband of trousers, to be discredited and ashamed in front of the people; I was taken to court without being washed, shaved and with very dirty clothes, etc.
Communism convicted me of falsifying and manipulating the State Security, many of the minutes of my statements to the investigator, in order to present me and my father as fictitious agents of the British Intelligence, and later intending to convict us of both to death, in a special military trial in Tirana, allegedly as a very dangerous British intelligence group in our country. This was their highly criminal and inhumane act. Communism publicly condemned me and degraded my human dignity and personality, as well as incited its extremists by insulting me, mocking and cursing me with the dirtiest words and hitting me with rotten eggs, rotten tomatoes and kicks. in the courtroom, for the reason that I told the people the truth of this hated and bloodthirsty regime.
Yet at the end of this fierce court battle, which lasted two days, I was victorious spiritually, morally and politically. Communism punished me by publicly tearing up my photograph as an excellent student, photographs of my youth, and burning my holy books of the Bible and the Qur’an, as well as many of my English language magazines and technical books, such as Imperialism and West. Communism condemned me and my family, calling us hostile families, when this family had contributed for years before and after the liberation for this country, and accusing me and my paralyzed father of being Western spies. Communism punished my family because we had met and welcomed many Western tourists into our home, on suspicion of foreign agency activities.
Time showed that these tourists were friends of Albania, while Communism was the executioner of our people. Communism punished my body, from the terrible hunger and great cold it began to melt like a lighted candle and fade like a flower without water losing 35 kg., And exhausting my energies to the most extreme point of life. This is because they called me guilty of my thoughts on the world and the life of the West. Communism condemned my outward appearance, transforming it from the face of an angel into the face of the devil. Communism punished me with the intention of the State Security officers taking and misappropriating my personal belongings during a search of my home after my arrest.
Communism condemned me and destroyed my health and soul in the most beautiful years of my life. Hunger, not airing the cell and the cold, were torture for me. Communism punished me by giving me the hostile nickname or the insulting and mocking epithet “Patoku”, to hide their activity, following and surveillance me day and night. So, my human dignity had turned into a bird’s name and quite lowered when they brought me to court with those incredibly dirty clothes and no waistband and no underwear. All these heinous crimes committed by communism against me brought me to the brink of the great abyss of life, as a result of the catastrophic drop in my body weight and the first symptoms of insanity, offering me towards cruel death.
Communism punished me by holding me for 9 years in the communist hell prisons, where I entered as a human being and was transformed and treated worse than a wild animal. It was all these punishments that communism gave me, that on February 20, 1991, I publicly ignored and publicly humiliated the monument and books of dictator Hoxha, in the middle of the capital. Time showed that I was right. It was the communist persecutors who had prepared “my secret grave of death.” This is why the faces of my persecutors are not removed from my mind and soul for the rest of my life. They have always been made to me and look to me like the face of the devil, who has crushed my soul, opening me a great wound and there is no medicine in the world to heal him. Likewise, there are tens of thousands of people who had my fortune. This is because I and all the politically persecuted were not born to suffer in this civilized and modern world./Memorie.al
Continues tomorrow
