By Agim Hamiti
Memorie.al / Unbelievable, but true. The man who suffered this unprecedented punishment in the history of world criminology was the distinguished Albanian engineer Kujtim Beqiri, whose photograph is displayed even today at the famous University of Vienna, alongside the photos of the most outstanding talents who have come out of its doors. After graduating with maximum results, Kujtim was offered employment as a lecturer at that university, but his dream was to help in the recovery of the backward homeland, which he loved very much. He was the son of a patriotic family from Velça of Vlorë. His father, Ali Beqiri, was a collaborator of Ismail Qemali in the efforts for national independence and a member of the directing commission of the military operations of the War of Vlorë in 1920.
Naturally, the son resembled the father. Under his father’s influence, Kujtim adored Kosovo. In the beginning of the forties, with the mediation of his fellow townsman Kudret Kokoshi (who helped with the organization of the judiciary in Prishtina at that period), Kujtim worked quite a lot in Kosovo, where he invested his broad knowledge in the field of modern geodesy. He also took care to build two bridges there, as a symbol of the prospective union of Kosovo with mother Albania.
However, the murderous dictatorship used the drying of the Maliq swamp as a trap for the elimination of some well-known nationalist intellectuals. It was the year 1946, the time when school texts in Albania were filled with disgusting servile dithyrambs (like these below dedicated to Enver’s pal – Marshal Tito: “Tito Fighter, Tito Liberator, Tito Victorious, and Tito Legendary of your people!”
Kujtim Beqiri and his unfortunate comrades (nicknamed by the Sigurimi “The Saboteurs of Maliq”) were arrested on November 6, 1946, brought to the improvised political trial on November 8, 1946 (the day of the 5th anniversary of the founding of the CPA by Tito’s emissaries), the court’s decision with drastic sentences was announced on November 19, 1946, and the martyrs were executed three days later (November 22, 1946) in the sector of works for the drying of the Maliq swamp. Kujtim Beqiri and Abdyl Sharra were hanged by rope, while Vasil and Zyraka Mano (a couple), Mirush Përmeti and the Italian Eugenio Scaturro were shot.
Imagine what barbarism: for Enverist “justice” represented by ignorant criminals, only 16 days would suffice (November 6, 1946 – November 22, 1946) to arrest, investigate, try and execute all six “Saboteurs of Maliq”! The unfortunate Italian understood nothing of what was happening until he saw himself before the execution platoon, because they had not engaged an interpreter for them. The civilized world treats engineers of Kujtim Beqiri’s caliber with special care. Even when their state enters war, it is prohibited by law to send them to the front.
While the profane cynic of Gjirokastër, who for two years could not pass a single exam at the University of Montpellier (France), killed with pleasure out of envy the most outstanding Albanian intellectuals, according to Marshal Tito’s instructions.
During the days of the judicial farce of the “Saboteurs of Maliq,” there were many journalists from Yugoslav radio and press in the hall, who rubbed their bellies with satisfaction that their political “laundry” of Tirana was exterminating the brain of the Albanian nation – an inhuman operation that would continue for a long time and would bring the fatal consequences that have been experienced for some time with weak intelligence, without dignity and national feelings.
The Slavic-communist crime of the “Saboteurs of Maliq,” like the improvised incident of throwing a bomb at the Soviet embassy in Tirana, left its traces with its ugliness also in the pale conscience of particular ocular witnesses – actors of those tragedies. Someone among these latter, when his turn came to be sentenced by the dictatorship, made known to trusted prisoners shocking details of those crimes.
About the rare engineer Kujtim Beqiri, hanged at a young age, it was managed to be understood that: – To “verify” the imaginary sabotage of the markings made by Kujtim Beqiri for the drying of the Maliq swamp, Moscow was requested to send an experienced topography engineer, who had to do his utmost to find “the deliberate defects of the saboteur’s work” and to draft a written statement about them.
This statement would be used as a strong card in the trial. However, the experienced engineer whom Moscow sent happened to be also a man of experience and a moral intellectual. After careful verification on the ground of the marking, he declared in writing: “If the re-marking of the drainage canals for the drying of this swamp were entrusted to me, I could not move a single mark from its place.
It is flawless work of a quite capable engineer.” Naturally, this exculpatory statement could not be used in the judicial farce, but it is difficult that they have left it even in the file…! In this framework, this very significant fact must be emphasized: The Maliq swamp was dried according to the marking made by Kujtim Beqiri, without any other marking.
– On November 21, 1946, the Sigurimi transferred the six “Saboteurs of Maliq,” sentenced to death, from the cells of Tirana to those of the Branch of Internal Affairs of Korçë, to be near the sector of works in the Maliq swamp, where their execution would be carried out the next day.
The cars had stopped in Elbasan, so that the bloodthirsty men of the Sigurimi could get a coffee. At that time the condemned were allowed to keep the money that was in their pocket on the day of arrest. Knowing this fact, one of the officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the death caravan had asked them if they wished him to buy them anything.
Engineer Kujtim had given him money to buy two packs of cigarettes and a matchbox. When he returned, the officer gave him the two packs and the matchbox, but not the remaining money. The quick-eyed engineer, who masterfully controlled himself even in those circumstances of extreme terror, had reacted immediately:
“Why don’t you give me the change? To remind me that I don’t need them, since I am traveling toward death? That is my money and it must dissolve together with me” – Kujtim Beqiri’s last words before hanging by rope were: “We are innocent, History will prove this. Long live the Albanian Nation!”
The executioner of the State Sigurimi removed the chair and the body of the wonderful engineer swung in the air with the rope at his throat. The fatal seconds passed more than usual in such cases and the ignorant men of the Sigurimi were being terrified by an extraordinary phenomenon: the hanged man continued to breathe with difficulty, instead of having given up his soul several seconds earlier! Was God perhaps making the last attempt to save the life of one of his favorite creatures?
Since the time of Customary Law and Roman law, the man sentenced to death was granted his life if the weapon did not fire against him or when, for unforeseen reasons, the executors failed to take him at the appointed hour for execution to the right place. However, with the Albanian communist murderers, even their Creator could not find the word: 20 years after the execution of the “Saboteurs of Maliq,” they would declare open war even on God himself, destroying mosques, churches and waqfs!
Shocked by the terrible scene before their eyes, the soul-takers of the Sigurimi re-placed Kujtim Beqiri for the second time on the fatal chair. Then they ascertained that the loop of the rope had caught the collar of the virtuous engineer’s coat and could not tighten to the proper extent. They corrected the mistake and successfully carried out the macabre crime. Surely the actors of the State Sigurimi of that tragedy have been decorated, not only by the Party of Labor of Albania, but also by its daughters.
During the 25 years of “democracy,” no president of Albania and no government thought of awarding a decoration to that unparalleled engineer of Albanian soil, before whose intellect and patriotism all the power-holders and their servants appear as miserable Lilliputians who live only physically.
In fact this is the greatest honor that they have inadvertently done to the refined patriot Kujtim Beqiri: they have not mixed his bright name with bloodthirsty and traitorous names decorated several times, with the Dictator-Agent at the head, twice “Hero of the People” and three times “Hero of Socialist Labor”!
Very touching are the words of Kadri Beqiri (the son of engineer Kujtim), regarding the great efforts he has made to find his father’s bones – a fundamental human right denied for the majority of those executed by the Enverist dictatorship by yesterday’s communists and today’s neo-communists:
“We have searched a lot for my father’s bones in Maliq but, unfortunately, there were no bones there. During the excavations we found only a human hand, which we placed in the small coffin, just to have a grave of his!” / Memorie.al
