Xhem Hasa

In 2010, the Macedonian Albanians political party New Democracy proposed for a monument of Hasa to be built in Gostivar. One has been erected in his birthplace, the village of Simnica, in 2006.

Xhemail Hasani (1908 – 6 May 1945), known as Xhem Hasa and Xhem Gostivari, was an Albanian nationalist and Axis collaborator, in charge of the Balli Kombëtar's activities in the western regions of Yugoslav Macedonia, a part of Yugoslavia occupied by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during World War II.

Yugoslav partisans faced difficulty when fighting Hasa. This resulted in the Yugoslav partisans bribing a close associate of Xhem to assassinate him. On May 6, 1945, Hasa was killed by a close associate. It has been rumored that the associate was his brother in-law. According to another version from Balli co-fighters, he was poisoned (always from his close collaborators on behalf of OZNA) on April 2, 1945. When dead, his head was cut off and sent as proof in Gostivar where it stayed for two days. Balli members managed to retrieve it in order to stop the post-mortem humiliation.

After the fall of Greece and Yugoslavia in April 1941, Hasa returned to Gostivar, where he gathered local Albanians to form a group of fighters who occupied Gostivar. In the autumn of 1943, Germany occupied all of Albania after Italy was capitulated. The Balli Kombëtar made a deal with the Germans and formed a collaborationist government in Tirana which continued its war with the LNC and Yugoslav Partisans. Xhem Hasa and his battalion was incorporated into the Balli Kombëtar. Hasa's victories in battles led to his elevation as the commander of the Balli Kombëtar in Macedonia.

Hasa murdered the head of the gendarmerie in Gostivar, who had abused the local Albanians, and fled through Mount Korab to Albania where he sought asylum in 1936. He lived on the outskirts of Elbasan, where he was soon joined by two of his brothers, Musli and Abdullah, and their families.