By Elisabeta Ilnica
Second part
“One of the biggest sadists of the State Security, the investigator Kadri Ismailati, told me: This woman is admitting that she had an intimate relationship with you, while you deny it. Why”?!
Memorie.al / He were 21 years old when he was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Agim Akcani is among the three former political convicts, survivors of the event of 1975, when two shootings were signed and six other people were given a total of 115 years in prison. They were called members of the “Baldushku saboteur group”, which, as the investigators of the case concluded, these eight villagers of the area participated in; “criminal organization against the people’s power, developed agitation and propaganda, with the aim of undermining the people’s power, as well as carried out the act of diversion, causing a damage to the socialist economy in the amount of ALL 359,983.80”. All these accusations were raised after the deaths of 98 Dutch cows (most of them slaughtered for meat), which were allegedly poisoned with mercury and other toxic substances.
Continues from last issue
Agim Akcani was locked up in the cells of the investigation, at the age of 21. After a year of torture, to admit what he had not done, he was sentenced to prison with the same age as he was, 21 years. Currently, Agimi Akcani is among the 3 former political convicts who survived, from the event of 1975, when two shootings were signed and six other people were given a total of 115 years in prison.
They were called “saboteurs of the economic system”, because they “intentionally poisoned” 98 cows of the Dutch breed, in Baldushk, Tirana. The story made a lot of noise at the time and is still remembered to this day, but even if it was forgotten – one of the investigators of this case, Dilaver Bengasi, brought the event back to the media claiming that everything is true.
His statements have greatly irritated his victims, including Agim Akcani. In the first part of the interview, he told the beginning of the event, but today’s continuation is more concrete. He cites the names of investigators and prisoners, among them two sisters, one of whom died in prison…!
Mr. Akcani, you stated that during the investigations, Bengasi threatened you in the cell with the words: “Courts are formal, they legalize our decisions. Your suit is cut; two people will leave this world”! Didn’t you think that one of those two people could be you?
Bengasi told me several times that you are not the one who should be shot, but with the attitude you are holding, you will take someone else’s place.
Have you accepted the authorship of poisoning the cows, as Bengasi says?
We have all been tortured; we have been reduced to corpses. Every minute is signed violently, unconsciously. For a year in a row I did not know the date, month, year. I don’t know what was signed under torture, or in my unconscious. These games of comatose firms are repeated stories in the investigation cells.
According to the minutes of the investigation, Bashkim Allmuça, a teacher, admitted to the crime of poisoning, even telling in detail where he had found the mercury…?!
He was a high school teacher, laid off from his job. I had never known him, nor had I ever bumped into him in the inquest or the court. He was several years older than me, as I found out later through other convicts. The truth is, he was badly used by the State Security. He has been key, to stage the tragedy of innocent people. Just read his testimony, it’s funny.
Investigator Bengasi in his last statements, even after almost four decades from the event, is still convinced that the poisoning of the cows was intentional; it was carried out by a person who organized a group for this, just because he was in office. He even calls it a desert. Does this epithet refer to you, or to someone else in your group?
I have an idea who he’s talking about. It is not me, because I have never held a high office. For me, only the brigadier’s position was low, or high. Because I, right after finishing school at the Agricultural Technical College in Shkodër for four years, directly started working as a foreman of this livestock complex.
But Bengasi thinks differently, he said that you had a bad biography and that you had taken “important” positions to sabotage the economy…?!
I had an uncle shot by the Party. His execution had taken place when I was not yet born, but it had never been revealed to us in the family. As a tribe, we had never had biography problems, since we knew that our uncle had killed an officer, so he was shot. I learned my biography from the investigator. If the biography had been such a problem, I would not have been immediately appointed brigadier, while in my tribe, too, the relatives were all right, no problems.
The thorough investigation and trial of your group of accused proved squarely the organization of eight, and that you had a complete and ambitious program to sabotage and seriously damage the economy of the area. What was this program?
Absolutely not. What program?! It was useful for the State Security to create a criminal organization. We, 8 people, villagers from the Baldushku area, would undermine the people’s power, by killing cows…!? On such tricks, investigators, prosecutors, etc. rose to duty, making a career out of “discoveries of groups” and executions.
To justify their macabres, e.g. in Baldushk, after the incident, during the night, several cars were driven around, throwing spotlights on a field, as if there were gatherings of enemies of the people, of saboteurs. Almost 100 people were arrested, with such fabrications.
In the group of those arrested and sentenced in your group, there were also two sisters. Why should two women be accused, together with 6 men?
Ah, what the hell…?! This was the style and method that began to be used at that time, but also later in other trials. The State Security bodies started to make sure that there were one or two women in every organization. Reason? The goal was to give the image that these people not only commit criminal acts, but are also morally degenerate, deal with women. It was the famous slogan that came out then, which said that; “moral degeneration leads to political degeneration”.
In fact, did any of the arrested have intimate relations with those girls, or you yourself?
I am sure that none of them had anything to do with those girls. Including myself. Even though those poor women, under the pressure of the uncle in the cell, have signed a statement as if they had a relationship with me and all the members of the criminal group. Which was not absolutely true, but they believed the “word” of the investigators, that if they accepted something like that, they would be removed from the investigation.
They would escape punishment. I was a young man at the time, I had a relationship, but I never had anything with either of these two sisters. Even one of the biggest sadists of the State Security, whose name is Kadri Ismailati, told me: “This woman is admitting that she had an intimate relationship with you, while you deny it. Why”?! I answered: “This woman accepts, because that’s what you tell her, that she will come out of the investigation, but what a sin…”! In conclusion, both sisters were sentenced to 15 and 14 years in prison. One died there.
How long were you in the inquest?
For a year in a row. The indictment was formulated on December 7, 1976 by the investigator Kosta Gazeli, which included the following points about the arrested group:
-They have participated in a criminal organization against popular power.
– They have developed agitation and propaganda, with the aim of undermining the popular power and have committed the act of diversion, causing damage to the socialist economy in the amount of ALL 359,983.80.
Where did Kosta Gazeli’s name come from, so far you have only mentioned Dilaver Bengas as your investigator. Gazeli was Rifat Daja’s investigator…?
There was also Kosta and some other investigators, which I will mention in turn. Initially, Dilaver Bengasi spent the first two months as an investigator and I do not know where he was transferred. Disappeared. After him, came investigator Fari Kraja. This one has been more regular, with me. It was true that he exerted psychological pressure, he tended to ask and provoke, but everything was fine. Quite normal for his job, but I can say that; he is the only investigator who has been fair, who has never hit me.
It was handled professionally with me. He never touched me with his hand. Other investigators were; Dino Leli, Bujar Jazexhiu, Niko Paskali and Kosta Gazeli, as I told you. However, after the departure of Dilaver Bengasi, the other investigators seemed to have a kind of withdrawal from the process. As it seems, they clearly understood that they had no facts to prove the accusation and left it to “double-six” Benghazi to take up the case and make other arrests.
Who used the most violence on you from the interrogators?
Everyone else. Benghazi has tortured me in the most cruel ways. The irons were the first, they gripped me and threw me with them until I passed out and woke up with buckets of cold water on my face. The other investigator, Dino Leli, also. Who knows how many times he left me unconscious, abusing me like an animal, until I fell unconscious, spitting blood.
Did these investigators use their hands to rape you or the guards or other people?!
With their hands. Those hands they have, not stained with blood, but dipped in blood. They took boards and irons so that their hands and feet wouldn’t hurt, punching and kicking us.
At what time of the day were you most abused?
No schedule. When it was up to the investigators. Even after midnight, in case they had quarreled with their wives, or could not sleep. They came and unloaded their worst nerves, spilling on us in the wood. I remember that Dino Leli, on the night of the wedding, came to the investigator and beat me. It was two o’clock in the morning. I never expected that on the wedding night he would turn into an investigator. He hit me until I was unconscious and ran away. He was a pure sadist.
How did you know that he was getting married, did you have enough confidence to talk about his private life with the investigator?!
That Dino Leli was talking to the other investigator, Fari Kraja, in Italian. They used to speak in foreign languages, so that the arrested could not understand anything. Especially for me, they had no idea that I knew Italian. But during the months of my stay at the interrogator, I shared a room with J. M. Since I had nothing to do, during the time I was not eating wood, he began to teach me Italian.
Why didn’t he eat wood like you?
He was an intellectual, intelligent, generally positive boy, but he didn’t eat wood. Apparently, he was handed over to the investigators, by violence and pressure, and was used by them to spy. I was the next job, for him.
Where did you come to this conclusion?!
Because the investigators took him, starting after I left, and we questioned him separately. He said that no one had called him and he had not left the cell, but the slippers were never in the same place. According to the order of the warden, they should always be in order, ready to wear, in case of leaving the room. That we wore slippers only when we left the room…! I am sorry to say that he is no longer alive, but I was lucky, how long I stayed with J.M.
I learned from him and in the end he had nothing to spy on, I had nothing to hide. The truth is, every time the door opened, I created the illusion, as if I was going out, because I hadn’t done anything…! After 2 months with J. M., I shared another 3 months with Lefter S., who was from Gjirokastra, who was a declared man. It was known. He was accused of trying to escape, but the truth was never known.
How did one know what a declared man was?
That he was an agent of the Security and entered various dungeons to spy, he even went to prison, with this mission.
There is a general tendency among former political prisoners that often fellow prisoners see them as spies. Doesn’t that sound a bit paranoid?!
No paranoia whatsoever. The State Security has used maneuvers from the lowest to recruit spies. Willingly or by force, who broke. That is why we have been insisting on opening the files for so many years. Let the truth be known. J. M. and Lefteri were like that. After them, in the room I had Petrit Kadare, why don’t I say about him too, that he was infiltrated?! He was a very good boy. But see how the Insurance worked? After putting a friend in the cell, the first and the second, as a spy, then they left them alone. They understood that nothing would happen.
During the time you were in the investigator, did you ever meet the family members, did you manage to contact them?
To meet, it didn’t even matter how long I was in the investigator. I managed to communicate with them, incredibly. I managed to write a letter, under absurd conditions. Of course, no cards were allowed, but here’s how it happened. Since you had nothing to do in the investigator, sometimes you did useless, instinctive actions. I had checked the pockets of my pants who knows how many times and here I was checking them again. When at the bottom of my pocket, my hand came across something, but I couldn’t understand what it was.
I turn my pocket upside down, when what do I see? A pencil tip, but no pencil. As a brigadier, I often wore pencils in my pants, but moving around would tear the tip sometimes. That’s how it happened. After I got that pencil tip, which could barely be held by two fingers, I immediately started racking my brain, how to find paper. That’s where my mind was. From time to time, the family sent me food in transparent bags, which were checked by the guards.
From there, I was able to pull a butter paper from the food. After I washed it, I dried it on the blanket, hiding it. I was constantly careful not to let them look at that piece of paper, which seemed like a gift to me. After it was dry, I took the tip of the pencil and wrote to the family; “They accuse me of cows and I will be punished. I am sure that I will be punished, even severely, even though I have done nothing. Be morally calm that I am innocent…”!
Letters were not allowed in the inquest were they? Who did you give this letter to send?
I didn’t give it to anyone, but I did it differently. In the cell, what did you think of? I folded that piece of paper until it was a very small square. It looked like a piece of garbage left at the bottom of the bag. The bags were returned to the families because they were used again. It’s not like they were disposable like today. Even the bags were so thrifty that they were sewn several times until they no longer fit.
Nesse… I left that letter like that and gave it to the guards along with the bags. He didn’t see it. But to prove, if this piece of paper would fall into the hands of the family members, I wrote to them at the end: If they would receive this letter, when you bring me food next time, make pancakes, as we know how to make them in Baldushk . Luckily for me, the next time I got pancakes from home. When I got out of prison, I found out that the letter was found by my brother’s daughter-in-law…! Memorie.al
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