Ex-Albanian spy and his wife fear new life in Wales ruined by blackmail claims

TIRANA, July 27 – The British media reported on the story on an Albanian couple, a former spy and his wife, who are now fearing their life in asylum in Wales.
Before they were arrested last year on charges of threatening to kill a man and force his wife and daughters into prostitution, Gezim Ndrecaj, his wife Vera and their children would not have attracted a great deal of attention outside Cardiff’s Albanian community.
Their story tells of a former spy and a one-time television presenter caught up in allegations of blackmail and illegal money-lending.
The charges were dropped and the pair cleared after the unreliability of the only witness against them, failed Cardiff restaurant owner Agron Hoxha, was revealed in court.
Gezim, 49, spoke to the Western Mail with his wife Vera, 42, in the offices of her lawyers in the hope of repairing the damage they believe has been done to their reputations.
Gezim says he worked in Kosovo for the Albanian intelligence services. Vera says she was a television presenter on their hometown station of TV1 Shkodra in the north of the country.
They left Albania, via Croatia, in 2002 when they started to receive threatening telephone calls after a change of regime.
A website called shqiperia-etnike – or ethnic Albania – lists a Gezim Ndrecaj as a former major in the intelligence services – and says he emigrated because, “ƨe knew and spoke more than he had to.”
Gezim smiled when Vera’s solicitor Cathy Williams asks if it is safe for him to admit it publicly.
“It is behind me now,” he said.
Whatever the circumstances, the couple and their two (then teenaged) children, arrived in Britain in 2002 and sought asylum. Indefinite leave to remain was granted in 2005 and they began building a new life in Wales.
They bought a house in the Grangetown area of Cardiff. Gezim started a job as a security guard working both day shifts and night shifts to support his family.
A world away from her former life, his wife juggled part-time shifts at Primark with learning English and later studying business at the University of Glamorgan. Their children are also students, Jetmir, 22, is also studying business at Glamorgan, and Albana, 20, is in her second year of law.
Vera’s fear is that their efforts will be damaged by the allegations made against them.
She said: “We have been accused as a family and it has been a nightmare. We lost our money but we also lost our dignity. We need to do something now to win back our reputation.”
They are now considering legal action against the man who made the allegations against them, Agron Hoxha, who owned the now defunct Cardiff restaurant “Casablanca” on the city’s Mill Lane. Although they admit lending 26,000 pounds, they deny threatening him or charging illegal interest and say they are still owed 16,000 pounds.