Nexhmije Hoxha, wife of late Albanian dictator, dies
Posted Feb 26, 2020 12:18 pm.
TIRANA, Albania — Nexhmije Hoxha, the widow of Albania’s late communist dictator Enver Hoxha, has died. She was 99.
Her death Wednesday was confirmed by her eldest son Ilir.
“She devoted all her life to the country’s freedom and the construction of a new Albania,” he said.
Nexhmije Hoxha was the wife of the dictator who governed Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, five years before a student revolt overthrew the isolationist communist regime.
Some 100,000 Albanians were imprisoned, sent to internment camps or executed during Hoxha’s repressive regime.
Born Nexhmije Xhuglini in Bitolj, in present-day North Macedonia to Albanian parents, she joined the Communist Party and fought with partisan forces during World War II.
After the war she married Enver Hoxha, then prime minister and Communist Party leader.
In 1991 she was jailed and in 1993 she was sentenced to 11 years of jail for corruption and abuse of public money. She was released four years later following an amnesty.
Besim Ndregjoni, head of a group of former dissidents, said he regretted that she was not jailed “for the crimes she had committed.”
Nexhmije has left two sons and a daughter, all married and having children and grandchildren.
Llazar Semini, The Associated Press
