Gani Krasniqi

Pristina | Date: July 26, 2022 | Duration: 145 minutes

They came and arrested me in the name of the people. They held me… so it was around 10:00. That day was Relay Day, it passed through Pristina. We had a duty, each of us there, to disrupt it, to mess it up. But they arrested me. […] But then I found out that they had, in the office they had wiretapped me. I didn’t talk in the office because I was aware that I had an office phone, but I would go to the post office for phone calls. I came across a tape and that’s how I found out. Tito was on his deathbed, it was in those, in those Slovenian hospitals and the weather was kind of cold, I don’t know. I talked to him [activist of the underground movement] I asked, ‘What is the weather like there? Is it freezing?’ ‘No, no,’ in Belgrade. I said, ‘It’s freezing in Slovenia, hands and feet are freezing,” you know, because they had amputated [Tito’s limb]. That’s where I found out that I was wiretapped. And then I knew even when they came to wiretap me, you know. I then knew. But they watched me, they were wiretapped.


Anita Susuri (Interviewer), Renea Begolli (Camera)

Gani Krasniqi was born in 1950, in Carallukë, Municipality of Malisheva. In 1977, he finished his studies in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Pristina.  From 1978 to 1981, he worked in Feronikel.  Due to his political activity, he was imprisoned in 1981. In 1998 he was engaged in the Finance Council, as part of the Ibrahim Rugova government. Mr. Krasniqi helped in the establishment of the first KLA groups and in the formation of the Malisheva Military Base. After the end of the war in 1999-2000, he was the mayor of the Municipality of Malisheva. Currently, he is a member of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo. He lives with his family in Carallukë.