Hasan Dosti

Hasan Dosti (1895 – January 29, 1991) was an Albanian jurist and politician. He was the leader of the Balli Kombëtar after the war and was considered by the communists to be one of Albania's greatest enemies.

Biography

Early life Hasan Dosti was born in Albania (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the village of Kardhiq near Gjirokastra, Back then the village was part of the Ottoman Empire and belonged to the Vilayet of Janina with majority Albanian population. He attended the schools in Filippiada and the Philosophy Zosimaia School in Ioannina. His family moved to Vlora after World War I, where Dosti met Avni Rustemi. Dosti then moved to Paris to complete his tertiary education at the faculty of law of the University of Paris.

Balli Kombëtar In 1941 he initially became Minister of Justice in Mustafa Merlika-Kruja's cabinet under Italian occupation;

Opposition in Exile In 1944, after the takeover of power by the communists, he fled Albania, settling first in Italy and then towards the United States. By the late 1940s he had become one of the most important Albanian political leaders in exile. After the death of Mid'hat Frashëri in 1949, he emerges as one of the principal leaders of the National Committee for a Free Albania. Based on CIA Reports, in 1951 he was the President of the Agrarian Party, an anti-communist movement in exile advocating for parliamentary government and agrarian reform in Albania, in opposition to Enver Hoxha's regime.

Death Hasan Dosti died at the age of 96. He had eight children, Luan, of Los Angeles, an aerospace engineer; and seven others who remained in Albania, including Shano Sokoli, Viktor Dosti, Tomorr Dosti, Ernest Dosti and Veronika Dine who spent their lives under Albania's Stalinist regime in labor camps and prisons.