Authored by Petrit Latifi. Written by Qazim Vula.

Qazim Vula had a house very close to the place where Miladin Popovic was murdered. When he came to Albania he remembered the conversations with Haki Taha. For this murder, 60 people were arrested by the OZN. Part of the testimony:

“In 1945, after the war ended and Yugoslavia was liberated, Miladin Popovici came to Kosovo as a commander. At this time, mass torture began there, especially among the people of Kosovo; bad propaganda was being made, saying that now Albania would also be occupied and made a colony of Yugoslavia. Miladin himself had said that they would send their army, workers and technicians to Albania and that soon all of Albania would be occupied.

Seeing that in Kosovo they were carrying out mass torture and murder of the Albanian population and on the other hand Kosovo was separated from Albania, moreover, there was talk that Albania would also become a colony of Yugoslavia, I talked with Haki Taha and Enver Sudi, the first from Gjakova and the second from Pristina, that this could not be tolerated, therefore something had to be done for Kosovo and Albania.

Haki Taha, as the most knowledgeable of us, a man with an education and a teacher, told us that the cause of all this was were similar in Kosovo, it was Miladin Popovici, so he had to be physically eliminated. Haki said that after doing this he would kill himself, just so that Kosovo would no longer suffer. Before he acted, Haki found an Albanian flag, gave it to a woman to embroider with gold thread the words: “Freedom of Kosovo – union with Albania”.

The woman went for it, but for the second word, she didn’t have the gold. So I went out, found gold thread and wrote what was missing. On March 13, 1945, Haki Taha placed the flag on his chest in my house, under a leather vest. He came out armed and set out to kill Miladin Popovici. We went out together. About 100 meters from the house, we separated. I went to the Bazaar because it was a bazaar day, while Haki went to Miladin’s office.

He had previously written a letter saying that he wanted to be hospitalized because he was sick and needed Miladin’s help for this. As soon as he gave him the letter, he killed him with an Italian revolver. After the murder, he went out and hid in a hay barn. After two days of staying, he went out to the city due to hunger, but here he was ambushed by patrols. In order not to fall into their hands alive, he killed himself.”