Former Albanian Leaders May Escape Death Penalty

Five top officials of the former Communist regime were found guilty Friday of crimes against humanity. Three were sentenced to death, the first such sentences imposed on Albania’s former Communist leadership.

However, it was far from certain whether the sentences read out in a Tirana district court would ever be imposed.

Albania is under pressure from the Council of Europe, which oversees standards of political fairness and human rights, to do away with the death penalty. And the verdict came just two days before parliamentary elections in which the governing Democrats are fighting resurgent Socialists, the former Communists.

The Democrats have in the past faced charges of pressuring the courts, and the verdict will serve to remind Albanians as they go to the polls of years of harsh Communist rule.

Defense attorney Fatmir Brakaj called the verdict a “totally political decision” and said he would appeal.

The five defendants were key figures in the repressive Communist regime of Enver Hoxha, who ruled Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, and Hoxha’s successor Ramiz Alia.

Communists ran a vast network of prison camps, where thousands of Albanians were sent for political, ideological and religious reasons.