A former political prisoner has accused interior minister Fatmir Xhafaj of being one of the cruelest torturers in the years of the communist regime, when the current head of the Interior Ministry was an inquisitor of Sigurimi, the secret police.

Former prisoner Lekë Frroku was speaking to poet Agron Tufa, also director of the Institute of Study of the Crimes of Communism.

“Marenglen Rrapi, Kristo Vangjeli, Rrapo Dhimo, Mark Pllumi and Thoma Jano were the inquisitors who tortured me in the most inhuman ways. I could survive only thanks to my young age. After Marenglen Rrapi left, around 1983, Fatmir Xhafaj replaced him as a police inquisitor in Kruja. I never had a personal experience with him, but other prisoners told me he was among the cruelest torturers they had ever seen”, Frroku said.