
Today marks 31 years since the murder and disappearance of Remzi Hoxha, an event that is still surrounded by mystery.
On this day, Hoxha's son, Ardian Hoxha, reacted, accusing the leader of the Democratic Party, Sali Berisha, who was president at the time, as primarily responsible for this crime.
In the statement distributed by Pristina, on behalf of the Hoxha family, he recalls that on October 21, 1995, Remzi Hoxha was kidnapped from his workplace in Tirana by people connected to the National Intelligence Service (SHIK), while his body has not yet been found.
According to Ardian Hoxha, the family has been seeking only one answer from the Albanian state for 31 years: the location of their father's remains.
" 31 years without the grave of my father, Remzi Hoxha"
Albania, we feel your pain, because we have experienced it ourselves. Albanians have suffered for decades and many of those who have been imprisoned, tortured, killed and disappeared have been disappeared precisely by their political leaders. Albania, the motherland of all Albanians wherever they live, has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of its best sons. Our family is one of those families and today marks 31 years.
On October 21, 1995, my father, Remzi Hoxha, was kidnapped from his workplace in the middle of Tirana, in broad daylight, by Sali Berisha's SHIK men. He was tortured, killed and his body disappeared. This is what the Albanian court has said with a final decision. So the state knows who took him, who tortured him and who killed him. There is only one thing they have not told us for 31 years: where they left him.
My father sacrificed everything for the Albanian cause, his life, his family and his wealth, so that Albanians everywhere can live freely. We expected his disappearance from the Serbs, but not from our Albanian brothers and not from our motherland. For our family, Sali Berisha is the biggest anti-Albanian and criminal that Albanian history has known. But he is not the only one. Edi Rama has led Albania for 13 years, we have sent him files and names, and he has made no effort to find my father's remains. When you have the entire country in your hands and you will not solve a case that your own court has proven, you are no longer a witness to the crime. You become part of it.
We are not interested in Albanian politics, neither the left nor the right. We do not seek punishment for anyone nor revenge for my father's blood. We only ask for his remains, so that we can bury him and continue our lives. Is this too much to ask for?
Even the Serbs, who killed Albanians every day, returned the bodies to their families. Our Albania, 31 years later, cannot even do this.
Therefore, I address the Government of Albania, the Prime Minister, the SPAK Prosecutor's Office: open the archives of the former SHIK, reopen the search for my father's body with specific people and within a deadline, question every person who was part of those structures and give guarantees to those who want to speak. And I also address those who are not the state, but who know. You may be old today and you may have carried this burden your whole life. We are not asking for your name. Just tell us where it is.
In these 31 years we have not been alone. Thank you to every person who has felt our pain with us, in every protest, in every interview, with every word they have written to us. Maybe it seemed little to you. For us it was not little. You are the Albania that my father loved. And you deserve leaders who put their citizens first and not themselves, who make the law the same for everyone, and who work for a better future for this generation and for the generation to come. A state that for 31 years cannot return the remains of a father to a family, cannot promise its children anything.
This is not a matter of party, nor religion, nor of Kosovo or Albania. This is a matter of every Albanian who has had a father.
We have been the sons and daughters of a missing man for 31 years. I want to finally be the sons and daughters of a buried man. Albania, I hope you don't see us as stepchildren, but as sons of mother Albania.
Ardian R. Hoxha
Remzi Hoxha's son
"On behalf of the Hoxha family ," says Ardian Hoxha in a media release.