Bashkim Gazidede

Bashkim Gazidede - (b. 2 Feb 1952 in Peshkopi - d. 25 October 2008 in Tirana) - Albanian Mathematician, author, politician and a chief of the national intelligence agency.

Life

He was born Bashkim Shehu to Osman Shehu, a sheh (sheikh), an Albanian Muslim clergyman, nationalist and outspoken anticommunist from Dibra, east Albania in the border with Macedonia. He therefore has been enduring heavy persecutions and humiliations during communism. This might be the reason why all of his Shehu kinship changed the family name into Gazidede. Gazidede himself has been a renowned lifelong Muslim devotee.

Despite all the fact that "enemies of the people" were by law prohibited education past high school, he somehow managed to study in the Luigj Gurakuqi University of Shkodra and graduated with a degree in Mathematics from the University of Tirana.

Career

In the years 1984 - 1992 he was an algebra and mathematics lecturer at the University of Tirana. In 1991 he affiliated with the Association of Muslim Intellectuals. In the same year he ran in parliamentary elections from a list of the Democratic Party of Albania, but he obtained the mandate from the constituency of Dibra only in the next elections in 1992.

In the years 1992-1997, during the rule of Sali Berisha he directed the National Intelligence Service (alb. Shërbimi Informativ Kombëtar, SHIK), created after the disbanding of Sigurimi (Albanian for The Security), the infamous communist Intelligence Service. He had no previous experience in the management of the intelligence services. In one of the first interviews he announced the removal of 60% of the personnel coming from the former communist secret service. In June 1996 he was accused of arrest and torture of opposition activists, protesting against the government of the Democratic Party of Albania.

During the riots that marred Albania in the Spring of 1997 after the failure of the Albanian Ponzi schemes, Gazidede led an unsuccessful operation to restore public order. Speaking in a parliamentary questioning session, he accused the authorities of Greece, the CIA and the U.S. embassy in Tirana for the creation of the military escalation in the south of the country. He remarkably praised the Greek minority of Albania for non-involvement in the events.

Albanian Ponzi Schemes

There is a large body of evidence that the Ponzi schemes that stirred the unrest were fomented by president Berisha. Gazidede called on all Albanians to do some soul-searching and each of them to take their own responsibilities for the events. Indeed, president Berisha did speak several times in TV and parliament in favor of the Ponzi schemes anytime somebody raised doubts. Berisha also violently silenced voices of MPs who spoke against schemes. This in good part counts for their wild success in stealing wealth from virtually the whole of Albanians—diaspora.

After 1997

In June 1997, after the election victory of the Socialist Party in Albania, he left the country to Turkey and Syria. He probably spent time in both countries. On 21 August 1998, the then Attorney General of Albania Aleksander Goga issued nine arrest orders of high officials accused of committing genocide and other crimes against humanity in 1997. On the list was also Gazidede. Gazidede was also accused of abuse of power and abandonment of duty in face of threat. In July 2003 the investigation against B. Gazidede was terminated.

In 2005 he returned to Albania after 8 years of a tough underground life and joined the administration of Sali Berisha as the vice-president of Albanian National Real Estate Registration Office. A year later he went twice to Milan, where he was treated for cancer at the expense of the Albanian government, with special decrees of the Prime Minister Sali Berisha. He died of cancer in the lungs and in the brain.

He was married to Leta and had two children, a son and a daughter, Besart and Bora.