| Honorific Prefix: | Blessed |
| Qerim Sadiku | |
| Titles: | Martyr |
| Birth Date: | 12 February 1919 |
| Birth Place: | Vusanje, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (today Montenegro) |
| Death Place: | Shkodër, Albania |
| Venerated In: | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified Date: | 5 November 2016 |
| Beatified Place: | Saint Stephen's Cathedral, Shkodër, Albania |
| Beatified By: | Cardinal Angelo Amato |
| Feast Day: | 5 March |
Qerim Sadiku (12 February 1919 – 4 March 1946) was a Catholic Albanian blessed who had converted from Islam. He was executed by a firing squad in Shkodër along with clerics Danjel Dajani, Giovanni Fausti, Gjon Shllaku, Mark Çuni and Gjelosh Lulashi.[1] He was accepted as a martyr by the Catholic Church in 2016, part of the Martyrs of Albania.[2]
Sadiku was born in Vusanje, Montenegro, then Kingdom of Yugoslavia, on 12 February 1919 and was baptized as a Catholic. He married a Catholic woman, Marije Vata, in September 1944. Sadiku was an anticommunist, an Albanian nationalist and had been a lieutenant in the gendarmerie force under Zog I of Albania.[3] During World War II he owned a shop in the Gjuhadol neighbourhood in Shkodër and did not become involved with politics until the end of the war.[4]
Although he had a Muslim name, he was a Catholic, and extremely devoted to attending church functions. In church he would stay mostly in a praying position, on his knees, rather than standing. He is also remembered for going often on pilgrimages with his wife to the St Anthony Church, a holy place in Albania.[5]
Sadiku was arrested and imprisoned in Shkodër on 3 December 1945, on the accusations of not going to vote, distributing flyers for other people to abstain from voting, and for being a member of the Albanian Union, an organisation that was considered by the communists to be "fascist".[6] On 22 February 1946, after the trial of the members of the Albanian Union he was sentenced to death.[7]
Sadiku was shot, at age 27, in the morning of 4 March 1946 at the Catholic Cemetery of Rrmaji in Shkodër by a firing squad of eight soldiers of the Albanian communist dictatorship government, along with clerics Danjel Dajani, Giovanni Fausti, Gjon Shllaku, Mark Çuni, and Gjelosh Lulashi.[8] His last words were "I forgive those who may have hurt me. I forgive those who have sentenced me, as well as my executioners. Long live Christ our King. Long live Albania!"[9] [10] For the entire day, the bodies were left outside to terrorise the population. The following night, a mass grave was dug near the river bed, where the bodies were buried and covered with rubbish bins, in order to conceal the traces of the execution.[7] Sadiku's child was born to Marije six months after he was killed.[3]
In 2016, Sadiku was accepted by the Catholic Church as a blessed, part of the Martyrs of Albania. The beatification ceremony was presided over by Cardinal Angelo Amato at the Shkodër Cathedral, Albania.[2]