Albania's postwar interior minister and deputy premier
Born in Negovani (modern Flampouro, Greece). The Special Court he led in March–April 1945 tried about 60 former public figures and sent 17 to the firing squad; some contemporaries called him the most powerful person in Albania at the time.
A participant in the founding meeting of Albania's Communist Party and a Politburo member from its creation, he headed the Directorate of People's Protection from December 1944 and ran the Sigurimi, then in March–April 1945 led the Special Court that purged opponents. Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in 1946–1948, he was removed, arrested as a Titoist and executed in 1949.
Activities and affiliations
-
1941–1943
Political and party leadership
-
1944–1948
Albania state institutionsDirector of the Directorate of People's Protection, Minister of the InteriorMain
Security, intelligence and policing
Career Timeline
- 1937Co-founder and first chairman of the Korçë Communist Group; by the late 1930s counted, alongside Enver Hoxha and Koço Tashko, among Albania's prominent communists.
- 1941–Participant in the founding meeting of the Communist Party of Albania; Politburo and Central Committee member from its creation.
- 1943Elected organizational secretary in absentia in March; became a member of the General Staff on 10 July.
- 1944Promoted to lieutenant-general at the Përmet Congress and appointed vice-president of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation (KANÇ).
- 1944–1946Director of the Directorate of People's Protection (Drejtoria e Mbrojtjes së Popullit), the OZNA-modeled organ that carried out the brutal suppression of regime opponents.
- 1945Headed the Special Court of March–April 1945, which tried about 60 people and sentenced 17 to be shot and 8 to life imprisonment.
- 1946–1948Minister of the Interior, Deputy Prime Minister, chairman of the State Control Commission, vice-president of the Presidium of the People's Assembly, and deputy for Korçë.
- 1948In October moved from Interior Minister to Minister of Industry; stripped of his posts and expelled by the Central Committee; arrested on 28 November.
- 1949At his May trial he confessed to a Tito-backed assassination plot and was sentenced to death; executed on 11 June.
Related historical events
The Special Court and the Directorate of People's Protection (1944–1946)
Koçi Xoxe directly commanded Albania's postwar state violence apparatus. According to Albanian Wikipedia, he directed the Directorate of People's Protection from December 1944 until March 1946; the body was organized in imitation of the Soviet OZNA and carried out harsh repression of opponents of the regime, and his successor was his deputy and confidant Nesti Kerenxhi. English Wikipedia describes him as heading the Ministry of the Interior and the secret police, the Sigurimi, and the Special Court article records that some considered him the most powerful person in Albania at the time.
His running of the repressive apparatus was bound up with the Special Court of spring 1945. Established on a decision of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of 25 December 1944, the Special Court for War Criminals and Enemies of the People sat in Tirana from 1 March to 13 April 1945 and heard 60 persons in 31 sessions. Albanian Wikipedia records that he chaired the court in March–April 1945, and English Wikipedia likewise describes him as the leading judge. The English Wikipedia article on the Special Court, however, introduces him as prosecutor, while a number of Albanian-language sources assign the prosecutor's role to Bedri Spahiu. Either way the sources agree that he held the leading position in the proceedings.
The defendants were persons who had collaborated with the Italian and German occupiers or opposed communism: pro-Italians, Nazi collaborationists, Balli Kombëtar members, former ministers, royalists and journalists. Most were found guilty; 17 were executed by firing squad and 8 received life imprisonment. It has also been noted that several members of the panel had no legal education. Xoxe's own end was bound up with this machinery: after his 1949 execution, figures including Special Court judges Beqir Balluku and Bedri Spahiu were themselves later charged with treason and as enemies of the people, and were executed or imprisoned.