Urim Elezi, born on 18.10.1941 in Floq, Korça, was twice convicted by the communist regime with many years of suffering. He was imprisoned on 26.10.1963 and released on 10.2.1989. He entered at 22 years old and left at 48 years old, even blind. At the age of 18, he completed the Instruction School in Gjirokastër, where he was promoted to non-commissioned officer. In his first sentence, he was a soldier in Unit No. 9357 Gjirokastër. The first time he was accused under Article 64, in combination with Articles 10 and 14 of the Criminal Code. He was on military service, together with his friend Hekuran Shyti, in Gjirokastër. According to the court, he had proposed to Hekuran that they escape because there was a good life in capitalist countries, especially in the USA. Hekurani is released from the army earlier and during this time he finds the other people with whom he would escape. Hekurani sends a telegram to Urim in Gjirokastra, asking him to send him a message that his mother was ill.
Thus Urimi joins his friends, Hekuran Shyti, Durim Shyti and Robert Morava. Not well oriented, spied on by a resident of the area, they were captured by the border forces at the Nikolica border post in the Korça district. The Tirana Military Court, with decision no. 21, dated 27.2.1964, declared him guilty and sentenced him to 18 years of imprisonment, confiscation of property, deprivation of the right to vote for 4 years and the rank of sergeant.
It was left in force by decision no. 23, dated 31.3.1964 of the Military College of the Supreme Court. He was arrested for the second time on 19.2.1980. He was accused under article 55/1 of the Criminal Code with very aggravating clauses. The Fier Internal Affairs Branch, with letter no. 112, dated 15.1.1980, requested the Investigation Directorate to approve the arrests of three citizens, including the aforementioned Urim Elezi. He was taken into active processing on 17.5.1979 for carrying out propaganda among the ranks of the convicted.
"I pentuari" and "Tekniku" reported on him. He was said to have said: "The Security has stained its hands with the blood of this people. They have committed the ugliest crimes that can be found in history, the Security has behaved with the people and with the people, worse than the fascists and Nazis have behaved..! There is no one more vile than the communists. I call communists all those who have the star on their forehead like a tomato, regardless of whether they believe in Marx's beard or Stalin's mustache...! The most monstrous crimes in Albania were committed at the time when the communists came to power! Life here is a prison". The Fier District Court, headed by Sokrat Dautaj, with the participation of prosecutor Kiço Koçi, with decision no. 94, dated 18.4.1980, declared him guilty and sentenced him to 10 years of imprisonment, as well as the deprivation of the right to vote for 5 years. Convinced of the futility of communist decisions, Urim Elezi did not appeal the decision. After sending a letter to Enver Hoxha, calling him a "colorless monster, sick with persecution mania", on 6.12.1981, he was beaten by the police of Burrel Prison until he was blinded. He was released on 10.2.1989, from Ward No. 305 Përparim, of the Saranda district.
While serving his sentence in Ward 309 Laç, in the years 1964 – '67
In Laç they killed Mark Cufi from Shkodra, because he tried to escape, but they caught him. They left him tied hand and foot like that for two days and two nights in the middle of the naked camp. Colonel Hazbi Lamçe with his hand, according to the rumors, had hit him directly in the heart, so that the left nipple from the bullet had entered his body. He died in the 1980s in Burrel prison. In Laç they killed in front of the outer gate where they dumped the garbage, in a mysterious way, the assistant doctor Eqerem.
In Laç, Qerim Çaushaj, a young Azgan from Dibra, at that time about 25 years old, committed suicide. He was provoked by the deputy commander of the labor camp, Tomori, who said: “What can I do, before I twist his head”. Qerim was in a dungeon with Qemal Mero from Vlora. Qerim says to me and Qemal: – “Friends, make it legal for me, because they will torture you. You know that I killed one of these, they kill 50 like us, but I still can’t stand it, because my family cursed me”.
He hurriedly left the dungeon, climbed onto the roof of the dungeon, from there he climbed onto the dormitory floor and from there onto the third floor of the dormitory and jumped headfirst into the tap, where the water came from so we could drink water. Surprisingly, one floor below where he jumped, there were command pigeons. So, Qerim passed among the pigeons. When he fell headfirst into the tap, his head was split open so much that his brains came out…!
After a month when we left, there were still blood stains on the tap! The worst policeman in Laç was Xhako Ramadan Mihaj from Përmet, who tied the prisoners up and beat them to death on wood. In addition, he threw them from the third floor, down. The floor from the floor was separated by boards and the distance between the floors was no more than 110 cm. Someone broke their hand, someone their leg.
In Ward No. 303 Elbasan and No. 323 Fushë Krujë, in 1967
From Laçi to Elbasan, from '65 until June '67. Here, the worst policeman who provoked the prisoners a lot, tied them up, beat them in the dungeon and who also participated in the shooting of the prisoners, was Dushani from Tepelena. I also remember another criminal, Captain Shashon from Devolli. Another was also the head of the Dege, General Nevzat Haznedari, unscrupulous, incomparable. He made many plots to turn the camp into a slaughterhouse. He acted several times, but failed.
From Elbasan to Fushe-Kruje
There I tried not only the dungeon, bars, chains, rubber tubes or the tail of a pickaxe, but also the billiard cue, which Commissioner Besnik Çomo broke on my head. At this moment I was with Agron Kalana. They hung us both by the shoulders, on the edge of the fence, under the soldier's bodyguard. After leaving us hanging all night, the next day they put us in the dungeon. Even Hyqmet Çami and Ibrahim Buzi from Mallakastra, after beating them gently, were put in the dungeon.
From Fushë-Kruja to Elbasan
Here, Mit'hat Alushi from Vlora was killed, a very young boy. Not only was he killed, I remember it being 9:00, but even when he was dead, they kicked him in the head. Before they sent us to Burrel, they took us one by one to the command office. There, Nevzat Haznedari, those of us who were going to be transferred to Burrel, punched and kicked us, and from there, threw us into the garden in front of the office.
Enver Shaqiri – Vlora
Elez Allçi – Tropoja
Dom Simon Jubani – Shkodër
Abdullah Sollaku – Tirana
Mehmet Hamza – Vlora
Gospel… – Saranda
Ruzhdi Kraja – Shkodra
Petrit Kruja – Shkodra
Dhori Gërnjoti – Korça
Peter Arbnori – Shkodra
Kujtim Luzi -Vlora
In ward no. 321 Burrel, in the years 1967-'69
As I remember, on June 7, 1967, they sent us to Burrel. The first presentation: “Burrel, you can’t get in and out”! This was the slogan written in red ink. The search would begin. We prisoners would stand apart from each other, no more than 5-6 meters. Jahil would come and ask; why did you fall, who are you, etc. At the same time, he would ask and you wouldn’t dare answer, because he would tell you in the Matjan language: – “Mshile (lock it)”! And with his finger he would point to the place where you should throw the clothes you took off.
I even remember very well that the policemen would check our clothes. Although everyone found it difficult to take off their underwear, we were forced not only to take them off, but with one of their “come on” gestures, they would urge us to come out, just as we were in front of him. “Akove ka (turn around like this)…”! We would sit with our backs to the ground and raise our legs! They would develop this situation because, according to them, we could put something in the front and back parts…!
Horror! I apologize for recounting this situation, but understand how I felt having experienced it…! There was a policeman, “dog policeman” Ismail Shaja (I don’t remember his last name well, because they called him Ismail the dog, because he always stayed with the command dog), who, unlike all the others, did not have a military uniform, but overalls. He did not ask you to remove your underwear, your pants. But what did he do to us? He would stick his finger in our back…! (I apologize again, dear readers).
However, many prisoners did not allow it. Those who did not obey, took worse… “the black olives in the dungeon”. They left them there for a full 30 days. Often, I must say, there were victims. In one case with this wicked person, I suffered it myself. They were two oak trees about 50-60 cm. long. On one side they were thinner, so on the side where they were held by hand, and on the other side they were thicker. With these trees falling, victims were caused…! This was also the case when the Beratasi, Baki Hametllari, was injured in the column and crippled for life! When I mention it, I look at this ignorant person on the head.
– “You have soiled my overalls, enemy of…” – Ismail the dog tells me. – “You have soiled my overalls, enemy of…” – “You have soiled my clothes!” I don’t remember my reaction, but while I was lying down I saw… as if I had ridden a white horse and, on its unusual saddle, there were some saddle-shaped trees and I was riding on them. The horse was running away at an unprecedented speed, almost as if it was flying through a forest full of trees. The branches of the trees were so thick that it seemed to me as if they were breaking me in half, now here and now there. Whether I screamed or asked for help, I don’t know. A large branch further on, caught me in the stomach and pressed me against the boards of the saddle. At that moment I grabbed the branch. There I realized that it was a walnut tree. Indeed, I had the tail of the horse’s reins in one hand and, with the other hand, I was tightly gripping the branch. The ground opens up, cracks, and the horse falls in. The horse neighs loudly and falls down, until it is lost...!
I lose it again. I hear voices, when I was mentioned and I see that the jahil was caught by two uniformed policemen who were holding him, Ramadan Kurti and Nezir Leka. They take him away from me and put me in the dungeon. The dungeon door slams loudly. I don't remember the number of the first cell! From the north side, snow would fall on the body, in every dungeon. While in cell no. 7, also from the north side, if you opened the cell door, which was opposite the windows of the middle bathrooms, when the bathroom door was open, no matter how soft it was outside, inside the snow turned to sugar, melted on the body and the wind whistled like a howling gale.
The spoon would stick to your hand and there were moments when you would forget this detail from the cold and start looking for the spoon. And this only happened if the body managed to pull itself out of the cement, after the night you spent stuck to it like that. I can't help but remember another detail: every time the body barely managed to break away from the cement, it would creak loudly! In the dungeon, we didn't wear our own clothes but the ones they left us: socks, pants and a beige jacket with stripes or a m**y color. For underwear, we only had shorts and a kind of beige V-shaped shirt. I would say out loud: -"Oh God! Take my soul". At that moment, policeman Ali Avaleja, there was no other criminal like him, opened the door and said to me:
– "Sit down, I dropped the phone. I'll be your God. Hey, where's your God? I'll be your mother, I'll throw the irons at you."
– “Oh God, please act, either you are ignorant like these, or you don’t exist at all”, – I screamed loudly. I was eating at myself, I was seeking God’s strength, his justice! I remembered Ruzhdi Kraja (Shkodër) and Adem Allçi (Tropojë), who about a year ago, they put in the dungeon from the north side, they beat them badly on wood and, when they were mentioned, they were tied hand and foot. It was freezing for twenty days, so that all the prisoners those days, could hear from the other cells, whether the others were alive or not. They brought Ruzhdi to the room where I was, there were about thirty of us sleeping there, in an area of about 48 m2.
Ruzhdiu was so swollen that we were all looking at each other, after they had opened him there. We all got up and went closer to meet him. He was only talking through his teeth and groaning loudly. When I remembered these people, I don't know how I got the strength (probably from God), and a voice seemed to prepare me; "collect your mind that in this dungeon that you are in, those tortures are nothing at all"...! Many other fellow sufferers have written a lot about food like food and bread, ventilation, etc., so I won't go on any longer.
Torture in the dungeon:
The late Pjetër Arbnori, along with another Dibra whose name I cannot remember, Enver Shaqiri from Vlora, Adem Allçi from Tropoja, Ruzhdi Kraja from Shkodra, had been in the dungeon for several days before me and Lek Bejës from Vlora. There was a lot of noise, doors were being opened, bolts were being heard moving until these noises stopped when the door of my cell was opened. I see 3 (three) policemen, one with irons in his hands orders me to go back to tie my hands.
After tying my hands, they take me to the office of the “pharaoh,” the police officer on duty, who, every time we went out for air every day (except in the dungeon), in the afternoon and in the morning, for 40 minutes to an hour, would check what we were doing and who we were talking to. (I remember that, the day the news of Mehmet Shehu’s murder was announced, they didn’t take us out for air for almost three months.) In the pharaoh’s office, I see two other people, civilians. One of them asks me where I was from.
– “From Korça” – I tell him.
– “The city or the villages” – he asks again.
– “From the village of Floq,” I replied.
As soon as he heard the word Floq, he turned to the other. I didn't notice the signs between them well, since from the winter chill of my cell, I was in the small office with the hot pore. My body, there, began to burn me in such a way, that it seemed to me as if I was being pierced with needles all over my body. – “Where do you know Pjetër Arbnori?” - the other one asked me. “Here, in Burrel”? – “No” I say. “I first met him in Laç”. – “In what year”? – “In '65” – I say. – “Do you know whose son he is”? – he asks me. – “No, what do I need whose son he is”. – “Bellovoda, do you have a village next to yours”? – “Yes” – I say.
“Do you know the German Nazi bunker?” –“Yes” – I know. –“Why have you ever been there?” –“Not once, but many times”, I say. – “Why do you say many times? Who do you say many times to?”?! – “Because you are asking me, and I am answering you…”! (We both raise our voices) – “What does that have to do with you, or were you a partisan?” – he says to me ironically. “We have a farm there in the hills, and the two springs there are in my father’s farm. We have 6 acres and 700 meters there”. – “Above the bunker in the square, do you remember? There, the fascist, the father of Pjetër Maskara, with this hand (he made a gesture as if he was waving a pistol) I threw his jaw in the air. While he was talking to Comrade X, I counted his jaw and threw his jaw to the ground”. – “Why are you telling me this” – I say.
– “I don’t care about that. (We look each other in the eye). – “What about Kujtim Luzin”? – “I have a friend, I eat and drink with him and we cook together”. – “Huh, so it’s true…”! – “What’s true?” – “What does it have to do with you”- he says. – “Do you know whose son he is”? – “What do I need to know whose son he is…”! (He started cursing Kujtim at that moment). – “His father, he wrote a book”…- he says angrily. – “I don’t have a friend with his father. I have a friend with Kujtim and I don’t even have a friend with him, brother”. (Silence for a few minutes) – “Do you know Çeğl Çobaj”? – “No, age doesn’t matter to me, but I respect…”! – “Because of respect, huh? Age doesn’t matter, region and customs don’t matter. What does it have to do with you? "He went to fascist school."
-I don't know this, but I know that he is a cultured, wise and correct man" - I say to him. -"Hey, you don't know his wisdom. Be wise, because we are setting a trap for him and you and the other comrades will fall in. Listen here, give up on these people, because if you don't give up, know that the drop that drips drop by drop on the stone, one day will pierce the stone..."! - "I don't understand you" - I say to him. - "You understand, you understand. (He hits me on the head) - This head will change its mind one day, because this head is not stronger than the stone, no..."! - "Why would I change my mind today"?! - "Why, how did you know here? What ranks did you have in the army"? - "Non-commissioned officer" - I say to him. (He started talking about the Party and the damned person at its head).
– “We have removed the bullets for you, so give me your word here that you will give up, otherwise, know that what you have removed so far is nothing at all, compared to what you will remove. Tell us now, that you no longer want to stay with them”. (At this time, the sound of the loudspeaker could be heard in the corridor where the office was located, which was playing “THE HEROISM OF OUR PEOPLE THROUGH THE CENTURIES” (it was played every day around 13.00). For better or for worse, I was listening to it; I was listening to how the fascists were torturing Hamit Shijaku. At the end, he closed with the words that Hamit Shijaku stood strong and did not break.
-I say to him: "But haven't these drops fallen on his head? If he has changed his mind, I will change too". (He gets up in a rage, punches me, I crash into the wall and fall to the ground. From the noise that was created, the policemen who were standing outside, at the door of the office, intervene. I find myself lying outside the office and I see the three policemen and the two civilian policemen who were inside). One of them, with his hand on his chest to hold him, says to him: - "Comrade Nevzat, stop hitting him, because this is a burnt card". From there they take me to the dungeon cell. I stay there for a full thirty days. During the days in the dungeon, I couldn't get the name Nevzat Haznedarit out of my mind!
It was that idiot who in '67 in Elbasan, took a bunch of us prisoners, beat us and threw us in the garden in front of the office (I've mentioned it before). After finishing my sentence in the dungeon, I meet with my friends who assure me that he was really Nevzat Hazdedari, and while he kept it that he was General Zija Kambo, Bitinckë - Devoll. Each of my prison friends, they started to tell what the hell had taken away from Nevzat and at the same time they were showing surprise, what business Zija Kambo had there, since he was from the army...?!
The most severe torture of fellow sufferers that I have ever experienced.
Ruzhdi Kraja – Shkodër and Adem Allçi – Tropoja
Of the living prisoners, in every torture that I have seen myself closely, the tortures of Ruzhdi Kraja and Adem Allçi are etched in my memory. Not only me, but all the other prisoners, at that time we said; "are they alive"! Before they were put in the cell, the Party put a provocateur in them. I don't remember his name. The provocateurs were prisoners, who due to circumstances, all family members and relatives were persecuted and interned, wherever their lot fell, (the infamous class struggle) where they were, the tortures they were subjected to and their weak character was broken. (I don't know of any case that a political prisoner did it willingly, and even no logic accepts this).
I say they were broken, because the operative guided them in their actions and thoughts towards other prisoners. In the case I am telling you, the operative was Esat Lata. The provocateur tried every day with his provocations to put Adem and Ruzhdi in the depraved trap of the Party. One day, after enduring him many times, they lost patience and said: - "O spy, give up these vile things! Don't shame the family"! / Memorie.al
