“Simbol to” values and ideals: activist Enver Hadri assassination anniversary

Enver Hadri, politician and activist from Kosovo, was killed 35 years ago in Brussels by the Serbian and Yugoslav secret service, UDB.

In addition to the anniversary of the assassination, in this jubilee, a European court gave the final stamp that he was the victim of the human rights struggle in Kosovo. He had political asylum in Belgium, while he was killed by the structure, from which he had fled, seeking protection in the Belgian state.

Teuta Hadri was 13 years old when, sometime after 7:00 p.m., when the main journal on Belgian television was broadcast, she phoned her worried friend to say that her parents had seen on the news that Teuta's father had been killed.

Shocked and unwilling to believe what she heard, Belgian police appeared at the doors of the house at the time to warn the woman that her husband, Enver, had been killed.

Enver Hadri was an activist from Kosovo. Belgium had been living since 1972, where it established the Committee for Human Rights in Kosovo. It was dedicated that the human rights issue in Kosovo be included in the international agenda.

He was killed by the UDB because of his activities.

Family Tragic History Repeated

The Hadri family story is marked by tragedy and resistance because of political beliefs.

Teuta's father, Enver, was shaped into a story he had not chosen. On January 8, 1945, when Enver Hadri was only four years old, his father, Islam, was shot by Serb and Yugoslav Communists.

Theta, the youngest of Enver Hadr's four children, is now 48 years old today, as was her father at the time of the murder, on February 25, 1990.

On behalf of the family, Teuta alone speaks of the trial.

For years she's been active with her father's murder processes. It shows that all experiences during these years have served as a law school.

Our life has changed from that moment. I cultivate the heritage and values he left behind. It is a pride for us that his name is not forgotten. He was not just our father, but a symbol of values and ideals”, Teuta Hadri says during the conversation for Radio Free Europe (REL). Teuta has a master's degree in Sociology and now works for asylum seekers' rights in Belgium.

She still lives in the same house, called “Maison de maíre” (The Master's House), from the neoclassical period, to the end of the XIX or early 20th century. These houses are marked by high ceilings, symmetrical facades, large windows, and abundant surroundings.

The house is located in Brussels, on the route of Albania (Rue de l Albanie). In the same house, decades earlier, Faik Konica, writer, publicist and Albanian diplomat, one of the most prominent thinkers of the National Renaissance, had lived.

The house building now has two memorial plaques with the names of Konica and Hadri.

Murder and Court Process

Enver Hadri was killed on February 25th 1990 in the country's capital, where in 1972 he had sought protection after persecution by the Serbian state.

In Brussels, in the middle of the day, not far from his house, while he was at the wheel and stopped at a red light, another car stopped from which windows were lowered. That's where he's shot in Hades. In the car, Hadri had the list of Albanians killed in Kosovo, which he would hand over to the European Parliament.

The shootings were heard about 5: 00 a.m., and the family, in the words of Teuta Hadri, was informed of his murder more than two hours later.

There were four people in the vehicle which Hadri was shot by, according to the court records: Veselin Vukotic, Andrija Draskovic, Andrija Laconiq and Darko Ashan.

The murder was ordered by Bozidar Spasac, a member of the Serbian secret service.

Andrija Laconic and Darko Ashan have been killed in Serbia during the 1990s in reckoning.

Other people, responsible for Hadr's murder, have twice been sentenced to life in prison for this murder.

The first trial was held in 2016.

Bozidar Spasic, former member of Serbian secret services, as well as Veselin Vukotic and Andrija Draskovic, have been tried in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder.

Vukotic and Draskovic have filed complaints against this court's decision.

Bozidar Spasic, the assassin's commanding officer, has not complained against the 2016 court ruling. When the second court process began in January 2025, Spasic appeared in Serbian media, which have editorial policies similar to those of current Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq.

The second court process against Veselin Vukotic and Andrija Draskovich, held during January of this year, also took place in the absence of the two.

For the second trial, Andrija Draskovic engaged the most renowned lawyers in Belgium, the so-called <x0-second-fisher”. One of them is Sven Marie, who defends the known terrorist in Belgium, Salah Abdelam, accused of planning terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, and in Brussels in March 2016.

Both judgments on the murder of Enver Hadr have been held at the Court of Jury, a top criminal case dealing with serious crimes such as murder, crimes against the state or treason. The decision is made by a popular jury and professional judges.

The jury consists of 12 people.

On two separate occasions, 12 people came to the same conclusion. So 24 different people, with different backgrounds, psychology or different private lives, make two identical decisions, in a 9-year period of”, said Sokol Vlahnji, one of the Hadri family lawyers.

Political and Historic Context

Enver Hadri was killed a year after the annulment of Kosovo's autonomy ] then Serb and Yugoslav province. The Albanian majority in Kosovo, on that occasion, was deprived of basic rights, including education, media and any kind of social or cultural life.

In Belgium, Hadri organised protests to deliver to relevant international institutions what was happening in Kosovo. It was this period when information channels were controlled by Belgrade.

I was everywhere with Dad. He would take me to the protests that he organized. He taught me to cultivate love for Kosovo and our culture. Above all, she taught me not to hate anyone, relates Teuta, who has regularly helped my father to compile letters and communicates because her French was better, thanks to schooling in Brussels.

Srdjan Cvijic has been investigating political killings in Belgium for years, including the murder of Enver Hadr. Actually, it's also finishing the book on this subject. He considers that Hadri's murder occurred amid tensions caused following the abolition of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989, by Slobodan Milosevic's regime.

Hadri's version of Kosovo in Europe, certainly received Belgrade's attention”, says Cvijic.

He denies Bozidar Spasic's claims that Hadri was killed because he was preparing for an assassination against Slobodan Milosevic. This algorithm, according to Srdjan Cviqis, is absolutely groundless. According to him, these claims are part of a UDB deinformation campaign, which the member of the facility, Bozidar Spasac, had perfected.

The most likely “seems the theory displayed by one of the witnesses during the investigation, that the UDB strategy was that, through liquidation of Albanian intellectuals, the national movement” is hit, Cvijq says.

A protected witness at The Hague Tribunal in the process against Milosevic, with code C-048, had declared that the liquidations of Kosovo activists in Europe were done on the orders of the Yugoslav secret service.

Witnessing in April 2003, this witness confirmed that Veselin Vukotic himself had admitted to killing Enver Hadr.

He explained that the general policy of Yugoslav secret services was the liquidation of Albanian intellectuals, because each loss of each intellectual would harm Kosovo Albanians.

Milos Vasic, who was involved in investigative, Serbian and Yugoslav journalism, had written in 2016 that Hadri's murder was the last “atventure of the UDB, which had been diagnosed”.

The UDB was Yugoslavia's secret service, formed after World War II. He was known for his secret operations and spying activities, in the service of the Communist regime's protection and oversight of political opponents. The UDB operated as a reception device and used violent methods to suppress any form of opposition and instability, including liquidation of political opponents.

In the late 1980s, the service fell mainly to the National-Populists led by Milosevic, who took power in Serbia.

During the years, exactly from 1972, according to Srdjan Cviqi, there was an increase in the number of murders of Yugoslav immigrants by the UDB.

Since then, this service, for various assassinations, committed ordinarian criminals who in exchange gained immunity from persecution in Yugoslavia.

Because of these practices, the criminalisation of the secret federal service occurred. It is also interesting that many of the perpetrators of these murders became commanders during the wars in the former Yugoslavia”, Cvijic claims.

The Belgium Court's verdict in Hadri case is the first in history to kill a diaspora activist from Kosovo.

Teuta Hadri estimates the act is a triumph not only for the Hadri family but also for all Kosovo activists who were active during the immigration years and who were killed by the UDB because of their activities.

This judgment, symbolicly, is not just for my father. This is a procedure for all who lost their lives for freedom. I'm looking at the Gervala brothers, Kadri Zeka, Vehbi Ibrahim... They were all engaged and sacrificed. In my heart, I did it not just for my father, but for all victims of an authoritarian regime”, says Teuta Hadri. / REL