Vienna, 15 June 1931
Mrs Hasan Prishtina set off for Paris 14 days later to join her husband, but we have now been informed that she died unexpectedly.
Paris, August 1932
The said Prishtina or Prishtina Hasan, born on 27 January 1879 in Vicitru [Vushtrria], Albania, former Albanian Prime Minister, who was expelled from French territory on 22 June 1931 because he was not in possession of a residence permit, has been authorised by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to stay in France. He is residing at 135 Boulevard de Montparnasse. He is living alone. His wife died in 1931.
Political Police Department
Note for the Department of General and Special Affairs
No. 508
Rome, 30 August 1932
We are sending the Department a note with information from confidential sources (with a request that no checks be carried out on him in France).
Head of the Political Police Department
/signed/
Rome, 27 June 1933
It has become evident that the Albanian Legation here was informed of the presence in Rome of the exiled Hasan bey Prishtina.
It is also known that the aforementioned Legation informed the Tirana Government of this fact, linking Prishtina’s presence in our capital to a well-known Italian confidant who resides in the Austrian capital.
The aforementioned diplomatic mission is currently conducting an investigation to find out why this political exile is in Rome, believing itself to have good connections with Italian political circles.
23 July 1933
Ministry of the Interior
General Directorate of Public Security
Department of General and Special Affairs
Section Three, No. 443/63680
For the Political Police Department, in connection with note No. 500/20664 of the 15th of this month with a request that our agent provide details on the stay in Rome of Hasan bey Prishtina and that he speak to the people with whom he was in contact.
Copy of the telegram of 23 July 1933, No. 7436, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Re: Hasan bey Prishtina
Your Excellency’s telegram of the 20th of this month, No. 443/62942
Please inform us as to whether the Ministry is aware that Hasan bey Prishtina was actually in Rome recently and, if so, with whom he was in contact.
Faralli
24 July 1933
Ministry of the Interior
General Directorate of Public Security
Section Three, No. 443/63680
Political Police Department
(in connection with the handwritten note No. 55905 of the 16th [?] of this month from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Albania Desk.)
Re: Hasan bey Prishtina
In the coming days, a well-known Albanian exile, Hasan bey Prishtina,, coming from Vienna via Trieste, will be arriving in Zara [Zadar] to meet Dervish bey Mitrovica. He will be staying for three or four days and will then continue on to Greece by aeroplane via Zara and Brindisi.
In view of his mission, it is essential that Hasan bey Prishtina, carrying a normal passport issued by the Prefecture of Istanbul, not be subjected to any surveillance.
/signed/ Aloisi
Rome, 20 July 1933
Department head A.G.R.
Rome, 19 August 1933
The Albanian Legation here that had contact with the Albanian Catim Saracci [Çatin Saraçi] during his stay in Rome, drafted a communique for the Italian press before the Albanian Telegraph Agency could issue its own, stating that the assassin of Hasan bey Prishtina was a Yugoslav. It is obvious that Saraçi himself was behind this communique.
As further information, I can assure you that, when asked by Kodelj as to where he came from, Saraçi replied to me in the presence of several very reticent witnesses, that he had travelled from Fiume [Rijeka] to Trieste and onwards from Venice to Rome, giving it to be understood that he came from Yugoslavia.
It has also been proven that Prishtina’s assassin was in contact with Saraçi in Nice and later in Austria and, thus, that he had broached the matter with the Albanian Legation.
The assassination of Prishtina is doubtless the work of the Albanian regime, not only in its own interests, but also to show Yugoslavia that it was able to act and rid itself of Albanian activists who were causing problems for the Belgrade dictatorship at the international level, in particular at the League of Nations, by submitting Notes on Serbian oppression in the irredentist Albanian territories of Kosovo.
Prishtina was regarded by the Albanian regime as a tool of Italy and Hungary who, according to Tirana, were keeping him in reserve as a possible minister of foreign affairs for his country.
Çatin Saraçi had to return to Tirana urgently and seemed intent on reaching that country to get his reward for the deed.
Those who are well informed by Albanian political exiles will repeatedly have heard the name of Shefqet bey Vërlaci, former Prime Minister, as one of the men to be eliminated by the Tirana assassins because he is considered a close friend of the Fascist Government.
Vienna, 19 August 1933
The assassination of Prishtina has had quite an effect here because, as has become known, his assassin hunted for him here. Prishtina was not well regarded here and, if he was able to spend 14 days here, it is thanks to the intervention of Dr. Funder, the editor-in-chief of the Reichspost, and to Minister Fey.
Rome, 21 August 1933
With regard to the news issued earlier (i.e. that Cetin Saraci [Çatin Saraçi], Albanian Consul General in Vienna, is the closest confident of King Zog), we have learned that last Saturday, Çatin Saraçi passed through Rome on his way to Tirana. On the day of the assassination of Hasan bey Prishtina, King Zog summoned Çatin Saraçi urgently and the latter set off immediately from Vienna.
With regard to the assassination of Hasan bey Prishtina, we have also learned that the person who ordered the assassination was none other than King Zog and that those directly involved selected an assassin from among their partisans, so-called Yugoslav Albanians, to throw suspicion on others.
Hasan bey Prishtina transferred the headquarters of his newspaper from Constanza to Salonica some time ago, to be closer to the Albanian border and to be able to exert political influence more effectively.
The King considered the presence of Hasan bey Prishtina at his border as a real threat.
The sudden call to Çatin Saraçi could have a link to the new situation created among Albanian exiles as a result of the death of Hasan.
Rome, 21 August 1933
With regard to the most recent assassination of an Albanian exile in Salonica, I would like to note that assassins charged with carrying out such vendetta attacks on exiles living in the Kingdom have also arrived in Italy or will soon be on their way.
Among the said assassins are officers of the regular Albanian army and even a diplomat, a certain Caraci or Saraci [Çatin Saraçi], a career consul or deputy consul who held such a post in Vienna for a time. He is very well known in Albanian circles and is often in Rome.
Ministry of the Interior,
General Directorate of Public Security,
Political Police Department
Prishtina, Hasan
Rome, 26 August 1933
As confirmation of the information we have already sent on those behind the slaying of the Albanian political exile, Hasan bey Prishtina, it has become apparent that political exiles in Zara [Zadar] were aware that the assassins who came from Tirana to kill the exiles were in the company of the personal adjutant of King Zog, Moharen Bajraktari [Muharrem Bajraktari], and of the known Zogist Serbophile, Fiqri Dino [Fiqri bey Dine], who covered for the assassins when they disembarked in Italy.
Albanian political exiles of all persuasions have been complaining that the Italian press has been ignoring the figure of Prishtina, who was always a loyal Italophile and, when it did mention him, it did so by using information from French newspapers that published communiques of evident pro-Yugoslav inspiration. In this connection, we note the article that appeared in the Petit Parisien, published in Paris, taken from the newspaper Regime Fascista [Fascist Regime], published in Cremona, that presents Prishtina as a Yugoslav.
[From the file of Hasan bey Prishtina at the Political Police Department of the Italian Ministry of the Interior, preserved in the Central Archives of the Italian State. Discovered in early 2016 by Bejtullah Destani.]
