Zef Benusi, judge, prosecutor, Minister of Education and Culture, was born in Shkodër (July-September 1943). He completed his secondary studies at the Saverian College of the city, and his higher studies at the University of Rome, at the Faculty of Law. After graduation, in 1932, he returned to Albania and the Ministry of Justice appointed him a member of the Court of First Instance in the city of Korça. After a few years, he moved to the cities of Tirana and Shkodra. In July 1943, he was appointed Minister of Education and Culture. He resigned two months later; after that, until the end of the war, he was a lawyer. He was arrested at the beginning of 1945, on the charge: “He took part in the quisling government of Eqrem Libohova in the Dicastery of Arësim, thus he was described as an enemy of the people. He was also in Com. of deportations”. In the Special Trial, held in March-April 1945, since he was not involved in any type of activity considered by the communists as hostile, he was sentenced to only five years in prison. After the conviction, the property he had in Tirana (land and house) was seized. Left between four roads, his wife and son, Anton, were forced to take shelter with their relatives in Shkodër. He spent only two years in prison and when he came out, in 1947, he worked as a manual worker. Later, he was interned for another four years (1954–1958) in Shtyllas in Fier and in Kuç in Kurvelesh. After finishing the entire internment, he returned to the city of Shkodra and from 1962, when the communist regime made some small concessions to those it considered class enemies and reactionaries, he was allowed to practice the profession of lawyer for three or four years in Lezha. He died at the age of 65. (NO PHOTO)
Text: Encyclopedic dictionary of victims of communist terror – Vol. I , “West Print”, Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, Tirana, 2012, page 170 – 171.
Graphic processing: AHCF
