Aziz Çami

Aziz Çami (1893 – 15 December 1943) was an Albanian army officer and Balli Kombëtar commander. In 1920 he was a commander in the Vlora War. In the mid-1920s, he was exiled after the restoration of the monarchy as he was a supporter of Fan Noli. In 1931, he was arrested for an assassination attempt against King Zog I. During World War II, he joined the ranks of the Balli Kombëtar and fought with Nazi Germany. He was assassinated in Tirana in 1943.

Life Aziz Çami, a member of the Cham Albanian Çami family, was born in Janjar, then part of the Ottoman kaza of Filiates. In 1917 he graduated from the military academy of Turin as an artillery officer. After his participation in the Vlora War in 1920, Çami became a follower of Fan Noli. He became an activist of the Komiteti Nacional Revolucionar (KONARE) , created and led by Noli on 25 November 1925 in Vienna, which aimed at overthrowing the Zog of Albania regime.

Hasan Prishtina and Mustafa Merlika-Kruja, two people that led the anti Zog associations in Vienna at that time organized killing of the king by enrolling Aziz Çami and Ndok Gjeloshi, both former gendarmerie officers and convinced republicans. According to Gjeloshi memories' he studied very well the scene before the assassination attempt occurred.

On February 20, 1931, Çami and Gjeloshi attempted to assassinate Zog in Vienna, Austria on the steps of the Vienna State Opera, while the Albanian king was leaving the building after he had just enjoyed watching a Pagliacci Although Zog's aide-de-camp Llesh Topallaj was killed, and the minister to the court, Eqrem Libohova was wounded, Zog himself was unharmed. In 1943 he became commander of the Vlorë forces of Balli Kombëtar, succeeding Hysni Lepenica, who had died during a conflict with the Italian troops. Çami himself was killed by Albanian communists in December 1943, in the same square where Avni Rustemi had been assassinated in 1924.