Mehmet Shehu

Mehmet Shehu (born January 10, 1913, Corush, Albania—died December 17, 1981, Tirana) was an Albanian politician who served as interior minister (1948–54) and chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) of Albania (1954–81). He was also Albania’s minister of defense from 1974 to 1980.

In 1935, after graduating from Tirana Technical College, Shehu enrolled at a military academy in Naples on an Albanian government scholarship. After he was expelled from the academy for his communist sympathies, Shehu fought in the Spanish Civil War and was later interned in France. He escaped to Albania in 1942 and joined a partisan unit supported by Josip Broz Tito. After World War II Shehu attended the Voroshilov Military Academy in Moscow and in 1946 was appointed chief of staff of the Albanian Army. A member of the politburo of the Albanian Communist Party (later the Albanian Party of Labour) from 1948, Shehu was party leader Enver Hoxha’s trusted aide and effectively the second most-powerful person in the country. With Hoxha, he opposed Tito’s attempt to include Albania in the Yugoslav federation.

According to Albanian state media, Shehu killed himself in a moment of nervous depression. However, the absence of national mourning and of a state funeral suggested to many that he had fallen out of favour within the party. Many suspected that Shehu had been eliminated by Hoxha (according to some theories, at Hoxha’s own hand) because of his opposition to Albanian isolationism. After Shehu’s death, Hoxha publicly denounced him, claiming that there was “incontrovertible evidence” that Shehu had been a traitor acting on behalf of a number of foreign powers and that Shehu had committed suicide after his treason was discovered.