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Journalist Artan Hoxha has spoken about the story of Remzi Hoxha, who was kidnapped from his workplace in Tirana by three cars without official license plates in 1995. Hoxha, in an interview for "Opinion", said that the kidnapping was planned in detail, as after being taken in Tirana, a change of cars was made in Kamëz, to lose track, before another unit transported him to one of SHIK's secret bases in the Kune-Vaini area in Lezha.
Hoxha added that in parallel, within the same operation, Ziso Kristopulli, at that time chairman of the Socialist Party in Ksamil, was kidnapped in Saranda. To connect the two people who had no connection to each other, the service had used a third person, an Albanian from Kosovo who presented himself with the false identity of a Croatian-Austrian journalist, Armando Diter Meçaj. According to Hoxha, the latter served as a connecting bridge in the scenario built by SHIK, meeting Kristopulli in the south and presenting himself as Hoxha's collaborator in Tirana.
Hoxha stressed that at the Kune-Vaini base, Remzi Hoxha was subjected to brutal torture to extract information. According to testimonies, he resisted, but could not survive the violence exerted, dying during interrogation. The journalist added that his sudden death created a major problem for the perpetrators, who had not foreseen his physical elimination, but rather the breaking and obtaining of information. Hoxha said that after his death, it was decided to disappear his body, which has not been found to this day.
Excerpt from the interview:
-Is this disappearance of Remzi Hoxha a state crime?
Artan Hoxha : Yes. And this made it difficult for a very long time to discover, first of all, what had happened. So it is one of those events that remained for a long time without information. And keep in mind that Remzi Hoxha's family had quite a few acquaintances in the political elite of the country at that time and went all the way to the family of the prime minister, then the president, seeking information about what had happened to their man. And this, the involvement, because in the first moments it was not known that the state was involved. And this made the event more enigmatic and for this reason it was closed. In fact. Uh, it was definitely an operation of the Albanian Secret Service of that time, because I definitely had a very interesting combination of events. So uh, initially he was kidnapped on October 21. He was not kidnapped, he was taken. Because there was no, there was no help, no... three cars went to his work center. The three cars did not have official license plates. He had a small business that was doing construction work at the train station. They went there, took him, without leaving any information about who took him, why he took him, because it was not known whether it was the police, or which unit took him. And after they took him from there, they took him to Kamza. In Kamza, the cars were changed. And from Kamza, uh, there is another unit that took him to the base of the Intelligence Service of that time in uh, in Kune-Vain of Lezha. You have in mind that it is, just past that complex, the building is. He was taken there. Uh, along with him, but the operation had been done before, in Saranda, Ziso Kristopulli, the chairman of the Socialist Party of Ksamil, had been taken.
-Yes, not for the same issue.
Artan Hoxha : For the same issue. For the same issue. And uh, yes, for this thing, before them, before these, another Albanian citizen of Kosovo was arrested, who presented himself with the identity Armando Diter Meçaj, as a Croatian-Austrian journalist, who was the only person who made the connection between Ziso Kristopulli, who was in the south of Albania, and Remzi Hoxha, who was an Albanian from Kaçanik, but he presented himself at that time, and the media presented him that way until recently, as a businessman. In fact, he was not arrested for business matters. And Armando Diter Meçaj is the man who had gone to Ksamil, had met Ziso Kristopulli, had stayed with Ziso Kristopulli and meanwhile in Tirana he had presented himself as a Kosovo Albanian, escaped from the prison of Subotica in Serbia, and who was an activist and fighter in support of the cause of Kosovo. And since Remzi Hoxha's task in Tirana was to gather logistical resources for the movement in Kosovo, he also had to receive and escort members of the movement, people who had problems with law enforcement agencies, that is, who were wanted by the Serbian secret services, but who also did not want to be discovered in Albania because there was a fear that the extended hand of the Serbian services was also operating on Albanian territory. So this was the man who connected the two people. Both were kidnapped, taken to the Kune-Vaini base, uh, tortured. Remzi Hoxha was tortured.
- Why were they stopped?
Artan Hoxha : He was detained as a person suspected of terrorist activities and mainly suspected of the assassination of the President of the Republic of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov, and also, for other activities in the territory of Albania as a suspect or as an infiltrated by the Serbian secret services. So this was why they took him, the Albanian service took him. Why did they take Ziso too? Ziso was a minority Albanian and completed the cadre. He was also from the Socialist Party. No connection with each other. None, zero. He was also from the Socialist Party and meanwhile, being a minority, they said that he was also from the Greek secret services. And the cadre was completed, an operation, Serbian and Greek secret services in the territory of the Republic of Albania. Keep in mind, it's '95, we are after the Peshkëpi incident. After the incident of the four in '94. October 3, 1995 in Skopje where he almost lost his life. He had a very serious injury. He was marked on his face for life. So, but we also had this situation in Albania. In the south we had the activity, the event with the Peshkëpi massacre, with the five, so the incident with the five, in the north was this other part. What happened to him, so we won't go into the other details. He was tortured, specifically the late Budjon Meçe was involved in his torture, because he passed away and, uh, someone else in Tirana led the operation for his kidnapping. Ilir Kumbaro was directly involved in the operational work, who continues to be wanted in Great Britain to this day, so after 30 years from this, from this event. He died during the torture in, at the SHIK base in, in Kune-Vain. As a result of this...
-Who confirmed his death?
Artan Hoxha : The other person confirmed it, because he had seen him there. It was Ziso Kristopulli, he heard what happened to him. Of course he died. And this, this stuck with him, this thing shocked the service that was involved in that job and since this stuck in their hands, they had not set out to kill him, that they could have killed him anywhere, but they took him for them, to break him and to get information. He resisted as much as he could, but due to the severe torture that was inflicted on him, he lost his life. What happened later, because here is the big problem of the Albanian state and that we have a big hostage that the streets in Ferizaj and Kaçanik and Skopje bear the name of Remzi Hoxha. So this is a hero throughout the Albanian space. His body disappears. Ziso Kristopulli is released and Ziso Kristopulli was the first to give the news to the "Koha Jonë" newspaper at that time. Now, for a long time there was no information and they could not connect that this work was done by the Intelligence Service. How did the prosecution find it years later? It found it by looking for the per diems, that is, by finding the per diems that the Intelligence Service employees who had gone from Tirana to Saranda had received.
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