Igor Vukadinović

PRIZREN TRIAL IN 1956 AND ITS ANNULMENT IN 1968 

Abstract: The aim of the paper is to shed light on the ambiguities from the trial in Prizren against nine persons suspected of espionage, as well as the final annulment of this process twelve years later. The research was primarily based on unpublished material stored in the Archives of Kosovo in Pristina, in the folder “Prizren Process”, materials of the Central State Archives in Tirana, and the fund of the Security Information Agency of the State Archives of Serbia in Belgrade. 

Keywords: Kosovo and Metohija, Prizren trial, League of Communists of Yugoslavia, Fadil Hoxha, Josip Broz Tito 

Summary: In 1955 and 1956, the Yugoslav State Security Service discovered that some of its associates in Kosovo and Metohija were working for the Albanian intelligence service. Further investigation showed that top Albanian leaders in Yugoslavia – Mehmet Hoxha and Fadil Hoxha – also kept secret contacts with Albania. Despite the testimonies of the suspects, Josip Broz, Aleksandar Ranković and Slobodan Penezić decided not to launch an investigation against the Albanian officials, and bring to trial only those agents who had already been arrested. Although the Prizren process in 1956 actually covered up the contacts of Albanian provincial officials with Albanian intelligence and erased their names from the investigation records, ten years later these officials declared the Prizren process “the most severe deformation” of Yugoslav State Security, aimed at “political liquidation” of Kosovo leadership. In 1968, Fadil Hoxha used political control over the judiciary in the province to, without any new evidence, overturn the verdict of the District Court in Prizren of July 19, 1956 and rehabilitate the convicts. The judiciary in Province was tasked with creating a story about “the oppression of Albanians during the Ranković period.” In the late 1960s, a group led by Fadil Hoxha imposed a fear-based and violent government against Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija.