How many more killed women?
Writes: Hanmie Lohaj
The last week of November 2023 turned out to be a week of tragic events for Kosovan society and for the girls and women who live in and are part of it. A policeman was arrested on the charge of raping a seventeen-year-old girl. A woman who has just given birth prematurely reported her husband to the police, alleging that he had physically and mentally abused her. This is not all: another woman who had just turned 30 was brutally murdered by a hitman hired to carry out the act by her own husband with whom she had 2 children and with whom she had been living for 13 years. Her name was Liridona Ademaj, she had just returned from Sweden with her children and husband. The same ones had just bought a house in Pristina and were planning to move into it.
The killing of a woman was reported on the evening of November 29. Based on an interview with her husband, Naim Murseli, the police report states that the couple was driving home after taking their two young sons out to dinner when they were ambushed by robbers who demanded all of their valuable possessions, including money and precious jewelry. According to the victim’s husband, Naim Murseli, he ordered his two boys to exit the vehicle after opening the car doors. As they fled a few meters away, he said that they heard gunshots, which claimed the life of his wife, who had remained inside. She was unable to get out of the car, according to her husband, since the door on her side wouldn’t open.
Two days later, the funeral of the 30-year-old woman was organized in the village of her husband’s origin. Many participated in the ceremony. Among other participants in the funeral, the husband of the family, together with his and the deceased’s family members, welcomed and escorted the corpse of Liridona. Less than a day after Liridona’s funeral, the Kosovo Police announced that they had arrested two people: the shooter, Granit Plava, and Liridona’s husband, Naim Murseli, as the suspect for ordering the murder. According to the one who killed Liridona with a firearm, Liridona’s husband himself was the one who ordered her murder, thus promising 30,000 euros to the shooter, Granit Plava, to kill his wife. Not many hours pass, and Naim Murseli admits ordering, thus arranging to kill his wife.
In the picture is Liridona Ademaj, and the accused individuals for her death. Her husband, Naim Murseli in the middle, the one who shooted her (Granit Plava) in the right and the FSK member who allegedly introduced the shooter to Naim Murseli in the left.
Naim Murseli, the husband of the murdered woman, is not an unknown name in Kosovo; on the contrary, he served as an advisor to the former minister of foreign affairs and the then president of Kosovo, Behgjet Pacolli. Murseli is also known as a businessman in Kosovo and abroad. The motives that pushed him towards ordering the murder of his wife and then staging the case as a robbery with consequent murder have not yet been made known. However, speculations say that Murseli may have done this in order to benefit from the insurance that his wife had as a Swedish citizen. According to these sayings, if an accident happens to one of the parents, the other parent receives a staggering amount from the insurance to take care of and raise the children. The accused has not yet confirmed these hints.
Naim Murseli photographed with the then President of Kosovo, Behgjet Pacolli and the former President of Croatia, Stjepan Mesić
Behgjet Pacolli with his former advisor, Naim Murseli, husband and suspected killer of Liridona Ademaj
Picture of Liridona Ademaj, the woman suspected to have been killed by her husband holding their two children (sons) / Faces of the two kids are blurred by the journalist intentionally
The deeply concerning issue of violence against women in Kosovo is further highlighted by the distressing fact that, as reported by local media sources, a member of the Kosovo Security Forces named Kushtrim Kokalla, who happens to be the nephew of Naim Murseli, is believed to have played a role in facilitating the horrific murder that has shaken Kosovo and the surrounding region. It is alleged that Kokalla assisted his uncle in establishing contact with the shooter, Granit Plava. This tragic incident serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need to address and combat gender-based violence in Kosovo.
Following the distressing revelations that Murseli allegedly orchestrated and financed the heinous act of murdering his wife, Liridona, her family has urgently demanded the prompt exhumation of Liridona’s remains from the village of Naim Murseli. They reached out to the appropriate authorities, conveying their deep distress over the tragic loss of their beloved sister and daughter.
There was a reaction to the shocking case from the heads of state and all the leading figures, starting from the president, who called the murder of Liridona “a monstrous crime that should receive the deserved blame,” although she did not specify what she considered a “deserved punishment,” to the prime minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, who said that “Liridona Ademaj was killed with premeditation. She was killed because she was a woman. Women and girls are also killed, while oppressive patriarchal norms are still widespread. Arresting criminals is not enough. The burden of the entire work system continues to be on the shoulders of women and girls, as long as the perpetrators of the crimes do not receive meritorious blame,” wrote Kurti.
Feminist activist Anita Mjeku reacted to Kurti’s post by evaluating Prime Minister Kurti’s reaction as if he had been an activist and not a politician: “Yet another reaction from the Prime Minister, as if he were an activist without any institutional function. Hey prime minister, wake up!” said Mjeku, Perspektiva reports.Many reactions have come from citizens who have requested that Liridona Ademajt not be referred to by her husband’s last name, that is, not to be written as “Liridona Ademaj Murseli,” but only as Liridona Ademaj.
Liridona’s brother, Leonard, in an interview for Radio Television of Kosovo, said that Liridona’s children still don’t know that their mother is no longer alive and that her little son had told him that “we forgot our mother in the car when we ran away from the thieves.”.
After the report that the person who commissioned the murder of Liridona was the son-in-law of the Murseli family, the media spread the false news that the Ademaj family would take revenge on that Murseli, with the headline “The Ademaj family gives two days to kill that Murseli.” All this was brought down by Liridona’s brother, who said, “We want quick and professional justice, without delays and without mistakes. Criminals should rot in jail. No other woman should be killed.”
Naim Murseli’s father, Shaban Murseli, said that he was shocked that his son had committed this crime and that “if I had known that my son had committed it, I would have taken revenge myself; he would not be alive today.”
Femicide in Kosovo is nothing new; over 50 women have been killed by their husbands in Kosovo only during the period 2010–2022. Two women were brutally and cruelly killed by their husbands exactly one year ago, in November 2022. One was 64-year-old woman was hacked to death with an ax during the night, while she was asleep, by her husband. The other, named Hamide Magashi, only 35, was months nine months pregnant when killed with a bunch of bullets by her husband, whom she had reported her husband twice for physical abuse.
At that time, Prime Minister Kurti had come out with a very frustrating article for the public, in which, among other things, he had said:
“Two angels in the dirty sky. Cruel murder. A woman was also killed. This too from her husband. In the hospital yard. Where people should heal. In the courtyard of the Gynecological Clinic. Where women go to give birth. A life that was bringing another life was extinguished. The woman was pregnant. About 35 years old, not even halfway through her life. And the child she wanted to give birth to didn’t even start life. Cruel killer. Even a man who shoots at the woman he was supposed to protect. Even a man who kills a woman. Which is now ours, of us all. Along with her unborn baby. Two less Kosovo citizens, two less Albanians, our enemies will be thinking. Unacceptable and unbearable”, Kurti wrote on his Facebook account.
Albin Kurti’s post on Facebook regarding the killing of women in Kosovo
Unbelievable it is how Kosovo’s PM can think of what “Kosovo’s enemies” are thinking even in a situation such as this.
A year has passed since the declaration, and regrettably, the situation in Kosovo remains dire, with no signs of improvement.
Hamide Magashi on the left, and her husband, Sokol Haliti, who killed her on the right
Agon Maliqi, an advocate for social matters, has expressed concern about the prevailing societal norms in Kosovo. In his insightful analysis, he highlights the responsibility of not just the state institutions, but also the family unit in shaping the values and attitudes of young boys. Maliqi draws attention to the collective actions and behaviors of our society, urging us to reflect on the impact of our daily choices and contributions, as a society.
He said that “the average Kosovar family educates and nurtures boys terribly badly from the cradle to adulthood. The result is a large mass of predatory bolas who, being incompetent, only know how to live at the expense of others—mainly at the expense of women—and are in constant flirtation with violence and crime. It is very easy to deal with such extreme cases, to distance myself from this Murseli, treating it as an isolated phenomenon or as a mental health issue, and to ignore the violence and cruelty that prevail in everyday life and that has normalized crime. Cubism of this level operates within a cultural ecosystem that normalizes and produces Mursels every day in families, in coffee shops, in politics, and on television screens,” said Maliqi.
On December 4, the first hearing for those arrested suspected of involvement in the case was held. The three—the shooter, the victim’s husband, and the member of the Kosovo Security Forces—were sent secretly, that is, from a secondary entrance to the courtrooms. Activists were seen there with a banner in hand that said, “THERE IS NO PEACE WITHOUT WOMEN’S SAFETY”.
Activists protesting while the accused for Liridona’s murder proceed in their first hearing
The month of November is marked as the month during which the Ministry of Justice, in support of the Government of Kosovo, organizes “16 days of activism against gender-based violence.” It is precisely this month, November, that marks the peak of the killing of women and girls by male members of their families. An 18-year-old girl from Ferizaj was raped and beaten for weeks and locked in the apartment by her husband, Dardan Krivaqa, and his friend, Arbër Sejdiu. She had died from the violence and countless physical tortures that her 29-year-old husband had inflicted on her. The lawyer of the deceased’s family, Gazmend Osmani, said that her murder was slow and torturous, calling it the as the most-cruel murder in Kosovo since the post-war period of 1999.
Marigona Osmani, killed by her husband and his friend when 18 years of age
“How many more women will die? How many more lives will be lost?” and “When will the state institutions wake up to use the state mechanisms to improve the situation and security of women in Kosovo?” are just some of the countless calls of women in Kosovo for the women of Kosovo.
