Dashnor Kaloçi
The sixth part
Memorie.al publishes some archival documents extracted from the Central State Archive in Tirana (the fund of the former Presidium of the People’s Assembly of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania), which belong to 1983 and are part of a file labeled “Top Secret ”, where all the correspondence between the Supreme Court of the People’s Republic of Albania, the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Central Committee of the PPSh is located, regarding the materials in charge of four former senior officials of the leadership and the Albanian government, such as: Kadri Hazbiu, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the ALP, Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of People’s Protection, Llambi Zicishti, Minister of Health, Feçor Shehu, Deputy Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs , as well as Llambi Peçinit, director of the Directorate of Physical Protection and Security of the senior leadership of the APS, who in 1982 were arrested as “enemies of pullit” and were held in the investigation of Tirana near “Department 313”, with the charge: “associates of the police agent Mehmet Shehu”. In the file in question, in addition to the indictment of the Supreme Court of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania (chaired by Aranit Çela), which sentenced to death Kadri Hazbi, Llambi Pečin, Feçor Shehu and Mihallaq Ziçishti, there are also documents with the minutes of the meeting of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly chaired by Ramiz Alia, (where the following participated: Rita Marko, Xhafer Spahiu, Mine Guri, Sihat Tozaj, Eleni Selenica, Elmaz Puto, Faik Çinaj, Ibrahim Gjevori, Nik Shyti, Petrit Gaçe, Rrahman Hanku, Simon Ballabani, Stefan Qirjako, as well as invited the President of the Supreme Court, Aranit Çela and the Prosecutor General of the Republic, Rrapi Mino), where the majority of its members discussed, considering the requests that the four defendants had sent to that high forum, for the pardon of life.
Continues from last issue
The ‘Top Secret’ document with the minutes of the meeting of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, regarding the requests made by Kadri Hazbiu, Llambi Ziçishti, Feçor Shehu and Llambi Peçini, for the pardon of life… !
Top Secret
Minutes
Held at the meeting of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, on Friday, at 9:00 a.m.
Friends participated in the meeting: Ramiz Alia (President), Rita Marko, Xhafer Spahiu, Mine Guri, (Vice Presidents), Sihat Tozaj (Secretary), Eleni Selenica, Elmaz Puto, Faik Çinaj, Ibrahim Gjevori, Nik Shyti, Petrit Gaçe, Rrahman Hanku, Simon Ballabani, Stefan Qirjako, (Members). My friend Lumturi Rexha (Antare) is missing for health reasons. Comrades Aranit Cela (President of the Supreme Court) and Rrapi Mino (General Prosecutor) have been invited to participate.
COMRADE RAMIZ ALIA: A team of Chinese doctors came, supposedly to treat Comrade Enver. They recommended a therapy which, if it had been implemented, would have been extremely dangerous for Comrade Enver Hoxha’s health.
But the timely intervention of our doctors did not allow the use of this therapy. Our doctors completely rejected the Chinese doctors’ therapy, and took matters into their own hands.
One of the Chinese doctors suffered a nervous breakdown and fled Albania. Apparently, there was remorse in his conscience. But that doesn’t really matter. The point is that in the years 1971-1974, we see an intensification of various agencies.
It is exactly this time when Mehmet Shehu was given the radio in Paris and told “You old man, what are you doing?! The time has come to act”.
And they give him not only the versions of how the assassination should be done against Enver Hoxha, but also the ways of how this assassination should be done. Either with delayed-action poison, or with a firearm, or with a car accident.
So it seems that we have this hot period that the American and Yugoslav agencies, as it seems, deemed necessary the appropriate moment to carry out the attack on socialist Albania. But what happened?! It happened what has always happened, and will always happen, that neither the Party nor the People ate this thing.
On the contrary, the group of Fadil Paçrami and Todi Lubonja were unmasked, the group of Beqir Balluku and his gang was unmasked, and the group of Abdyl Këllez was unmasked. But Mehmet Shehu, together with his friends, gathered their feet again.
Based on the court documents, it turns out that Mehmet Shehu was fully aware of all this activity. And not only that, but at the same time, he encouraged both one group and the other, but when these groups were discovered, Mehmet Shehu immediately withdrew.
And not only that, but he came out with the Party’s flag, supposedly for their unmasking. That’s what he did with Fadil Paçram’s group, that’s what he did with Beqir Balluku’s group, where he defended Petrit Dumen and Hito Çako. But when these two were discovered, he also gave them his hands.
This is how he acted with Abdyl Këllez’s group. But from these groups of enemies through the investigation, nothing more than what the Central Committee of the Party said, since the material was processed by Kadri Hazbiu and Feçor Shehu.
COMRADE ARANIT ÇELA: Even the black theses were Mehmet Shehu’s theses.
COMRADE RAMIZ ALIA: Yes, now, it is completely proven, even they were found written. These theses were fully approved and were drafted under the instructions and direction of Mehmet Shehu. Nesti Nase and Kadri Hazbi also confirmed this.
COMRADE ARANIT ÇELA: Kadriu even said that he gave an order to postpone the process, because the theses were theirs.
COMRADE RAMIZ ALIA: So it is a period of intense time against the Party, but still the hostile groups failed one after the other. Thus, this period of 1971-1975 passed with all these vicissitudes. After this period, as is known, events again took their course. Following the recent events in Kosovo, which forced the Yugoslav agency to act with intensity? Why?!
Because she was in front of a great danger, that of the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation. Now, their house was burning. Before this great danger, they asked to put their main agent, Mehmet Shehu, into full activity. While they kept Kadri Hazbiu as a reserve, who was the other most active man in this gang. Why did they reserve Kadri Hazbiu?!
They kept Kadri Hazbi as a reserve after they ordered Mehmet Shehu to act, to assassinate Enver Hoxha. They went so far that on December 16, 1981, Feçor Shehu, as it appears from all the documents administered in court, went to Mehmet Shehu and gave him the ultimatum of the Yugoslavs, that he must kill Enver Hoxha at the meeting, either by he himself was killed.
Who says: “even if he himself is killed”?! It means that the Yugoslavs had decided that this one would also be liquidated, because it could no longer do its job.
That they would lose Mehmet Shehu, this did not bother you at all since they had the other reserve, and they had Kadri Hazbiu who was in the shadows. And in fact, Fiqrete Shehu said in court that: starting from September when the engagement of Mehmet Shehu’s son, Kadri Hazbiu, was exposed, he distanced himself from Mehmet Shehu, who, as Fiqretja claims, said to him: “Ah Juda , he wants to throw me now too”.
In other words, Kadri Hazbi’s position was a dictated position. It seems that the Yugoslavs sent permission to Kadri Hazbi, so that Mehmet Shehu would be allowed to act. While he was waiting for Mehmet Shehu to be liquidated, for Kadri Hazbiu to act. And if we look at the attitude that Kadri Hazbiu held at that time, as his friends also affirm, he was ardent against the action of the engagement of Mehmet Shehu’s son, and he did this because he wanted to strengthen his positions according to the instructions that he had received.
But the Party handled the problem of Mehmet Shehu’s son’s engagement very carefully and the events unfolded as they unfolded. In the trial, it was fully confirmed by many witnesses, even by the witnesses that Kadri Hazbiu himself requested, that on the night of December 17, 1981, the night that Mehmet Shehu killed himself, Kadri Hazbiu went to his house.
They proved this with many facts despite the fact that Kadri Hazbiu had built an alibi which consisted of the fact that Kadriu had been at a dinner that night. So that night after the meeting of the Political Bureau, according to Kadri Hazbiu, the latter, there was no way he could have been at Mehmet Shehu’s house. To prove his alibi, he asked the host of the dinner, an officer, to testify.
He even asked his driver to say that he did not take him to Mehmet Shehu’s house. In the trial, 5-6 other witnesses who were part of the dinner were heard, apart from Ali Çeno, Mehmet Shehu’s officer, and Fiqrete who testified that Kadri Hazbiu went to Mehmet Shehu that night.
This is confirmed by the officers of the Guard themselves, who saw that Kadri Hazbiu went to Mehmet Shehu. So in this way, the witnesses that Kadri Hazbiu requested were also questioned. His own driver stated that he took him by car from the Central Committee of the Party at around 20:10, when the meeting of the Political Bureau ended, and then took him to the office.
From there, he sent the driver to take cigarettes home. After he brought him cigarettes, Kadri Hazbiu told him to wait for him to come out. He left the office, got into the car, and ordered it to go down the boulevard. And when they reached Lana’s bridge, he told her to turn right.
The driver returned and took him to the house of his friend Rita Marko. The driver stopped there. Kadriu got out of the car, but where he went, the driver did not know this. After 20 minutes or half an hour, continues the driver, Kadri Hazbiu is back. To this witness, Kadri Hazbiu, among others, he asked this question: “Do you remember whether I got out of the car or not?”?!
And the witness answered: “Why did I take you there so that you could stay in the car? You got off, but I don’t know where you went.” At this time, Ali Çeno intervened and said: “I know where you went. I waited for you at the door of Mehmet Shehu’s house.” He was heard as a witness and the owner of the house where the dinner was held.
When his friend asked Aran, when Kadri Hazbiu went to his house for dinner, he answered: “I had invited Kadri Hazbiu because I had my party, my 35th anniversary. I was waiting for him to come. When they took me to call and they tell me that Kadriu will be late, so leave the chair empty.
We started eating and drinking. When I was informed that Kadri Hazbiu was coming, I went downstairs and waited for him. I don’t remember the exact time when he came, but it must have been after 21.30 or 22.00”.
Kadri Hazbiu asked him: “You said you had been drinking, how did you remember the time”?! And the witness said to him: “The fact that I had been drinking means that you came late. Besides, I spent two weeks in the hospital after that night, because I caught a cold when I went down to meet you. I was sweating because I had drunk. So you came too late”.
In a word, from all the witnesses, it is completely confirmed that Kadri Hazbiu went to Mehmet Shehu’s house that night, after the meeting of the Political Bureau. This fact raises the question: Why did Kadri Hazbiu go to Mehmet Shehu?! Surely Kadri Hazbiu was scared at the meeting of the Political Bureau after he saw that Mehmet Shehu lost all his points.
Kadri Hazbiu, fearing that Mehmet Shehu would denounce him, or because they might later force him to denounce. So then, all their activity would come out of the square. Kadri Hazbiu was scared after he saw that at the meeting of the Political Bureau, Mehmet Shehu became like a chicken and was no longer the former Mehmet Shehu.
The Bureau’s colleagues talked and he took notes, filling 20-30 large sheets. And Kadriu, there is a high probability, that we don’t know what they discussed between them, that he scared Mehmet Shehu. We know that he went to Mehmet; we also know that he entered Mehmet’s room. Fiqretja testified that Kadriu was brought inside, and she herself stayed outside.
Ali Çeno testified that when Kadriu left Mehmet’s office, he had a file with him. We don’t know what was inside the file, and we can’t find it out, since we can’t find it. What did Mehmet talk to Kadri?! Fiqretja shows what Mehmet told him afterwards.
COMRADE ARANIT ÇELA: Fiqretja says that Mehmet told me that the Soviets approved that of the Yugoslavs.
FRIEND RAMIZ ALIA: So, as we said, there is a high probability that Kadriu scared Mehmet. Why?! Because the whole problem is, in the words of Comrade Enver: “Alibi”. Comrade Enver, at the end of the meeting of the Political Bureau, said to Mehmet: “Now you go home, because we are also going.
We will not fall asleep, and you will fall asleep even less. Think and reflect, about all that your friends told you and talk to us tomorrow, because the alibi you have, the alibi you’ve kept to, doesn’t hold.”
The word “alibi” burned him. But this word also burned Kadri Hazbiu. When he went to Mehmet, it seems he would have scared him: “Look at Mehmet Shehu, these people know other things, because during these times, I had very close contacts with my friends, especially with my friend Enver”.
And this was known. As I said, Kadriu, after the engagement made by Mehmet Shehu’s son, and after what happened, showed him to be fiery and kept his distance from Mehmet. So he may have told Mehmet that: I know some things, hinting that: “Tomorrow, when you come there, you will go inside”. If he did not say: “I am in charge of this work”.
In other words, he told him everything, in order to push him to commit suicide. Kadri Hazbi was no longer interested in Mehmet Shehu. And for the Yugoslav agency Mehmet Shehu, it ended after she asked him to carry out the act of assassination, and he himself was killed.
So as an agency, Mehmet Shehu was liquidated. But his existence became more dangerous for Kadri, who wanted to continue this hostile path himself. Memorie.al
The next issue follows
