Albanian Leader Alia Sentenced on Rights Violations

This nation’s last Communist ruler, Ramiz Alia, was convicted Saturday and sentenced to nine years in prison for violating the rights of citizens while he was in power.

A three-judge panel reached the verdict partly on the testimony of former political prisoners.

Alia, 68, said the verdict against him “shows that revenge is still very strong.”

The former president said the charges against him were political. None of the testimony during the trial, which began May 21, linked him directly to any crimes, he said.

Under the initial charges, Alia could have been sentenced to 25 years in prison. But the prosecution dropped a charge of misappropriation of state funds midway through the trial for lack of evidence.

The court ordered Alia to repay the equivalent of $117,000 in state funds spent for personal services while he was president.

Nine other former officials on trial with Alia got lesser sentences.

Alia was hand-picked by Enver Hoxha, the longtime Stalinist ruler who died in 1985, and ran the impoverished Balkan state until the advent of multi-party democracy in early 1991. He briefly remained president after the country’s first free elections.

Alia was the latest of several top figures from the Communist regime sentenced to prison terms for corruption or similar charges.