Upper Darby man fights deportation, fears persecution back in Albania

By TIMOTHY LOGUE , tlogue@delcotimes.com 12/04/2003


Jimmy Bellini’s smile reflects none of the stress that comes with owning a restaurant in the heart of Center City Philadelphia.
And his eyes, even on three hours of sleep, belie the fact that he’s the father of an 8-month-old son.

To his customers, the 34-year-old native of Albania is easygoing, accommodating to an uncommon degree, and supremely happy.

"I love my work and making people happy," said Bellini, who resides in Upper Darby with his wife, Julia, and son, Jon. "I am here sometimes 14 or 15 hours a day."

Beyond his lawyers and immediate family, there are very few who know what frightens and motivates Bellini to get out of the house each morning -- that today, tomorrow or the day after, he could be swept up my immigration authorities and flown back to Albania.

"I go to bed scared every night and dream about what could happen," Bellini said. "If I go back, it will be the same. They will send me to prison and they will torture me again."

Lawyers fighting to win asylum for Bellini are convinced that he could die if he goes back to Albania, a country the size of Maryland that was part of the Soviet Bloc until the early 1990s.

"Communism may have fallen but the government isn’t any better," said immigration lawyer Susan R. Smolens of Radnor. "No one has control over the police who have tortured and imprisoned Jimmy, his father and his grandfather for their anti-communist beliefs."

The U.S. court system hasn’t been much kinder to Bellini, who arrived in Newark, N.J., with a phony passport in 1998 and immediately asked for asylum.

A Philadelphia immigration judge ruled against him in 1999 and an appeal of that decision was turned away by the Board of Immigration Appeals Sept. 26 of this year.

"He can’t sleep so he works like hell and hopes for the best," Smolens said. "He’s terrified. He knows that he could be picked up at any time."

Bellini’s hopes now rest with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Philadelphia attorney M. Mark Mendel. "We created a petition that’s tantamount to a habeas corpus petition," he said. "It says that Jimmy faces an imminent threat of persecution if sent back to Albania."

Mendel is hoping the people who read the opinions and make recommendations to the judges will take a different view of Albanian landscape than the immigration court -- which said Bellini failed to prove that he would be targeted for mistreatment if deported.

"I wouldn’t say there’s a good chance (that the court will hear Bellini’s case)," Mendel said, "but the humanity of the court has been creeping through lately in some cases. I hope they get a chance to see this hard-working man with a wife and American son. There’s a good citizenship quality that comes through in how this man has lived."

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The dishes Belliniprepares in his 50-seat eatery in the 200 block of South 16th Street -- grilled Norwegian salmon and veal medallions sautéed with baby artichoke hearts and asparagus are two -- stand in stark contrast to the rations he, his mother, father and three siblings lived on for years on end.

"For six people, we could only get two pounds of meat per week; one pound of cheese, one pound of butter, five eggs .. We were always hungry."

Before communists took control of Albania in 1946, Bellini’s family wanted for very little. His grandfather was a military officer in the court of King Zog I, and owned a pair of small farms, a 12-bedroom home and a considerable inheritance. After the war, the new government implemented reforms that stripped the family of its wealth and possessions.

"My whole family moved into a basement of an apartment," Bellini said. Between 1952 and 1988, 14 members of the Bellini clan lived in the small, damp space.

Labeled an enemy of the state, Bellini said his grandfather was arrested, tortured and imprisoned on numerous occasions.

His father, who began hauling trash at age 13 to help support the family, did not fare any better and was also arrested and beaten regularly for his pro-democracy views.

"By the time Jimmy was 16 he was already following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather," Smolens said. "He helped organize protests, walked in demonstrations and was picked up by the police several times."

In 1984, after speaking out at a neighborhood council meeting against the persecution his family was suffering, the 15-year-old Bellini was put on a "list of negative elements."

A short time later, four policemen dragged him from the basement apartment. After being beaten about by fists, feet and the butt of a machine gun, Bellini was taken to a police precinct where he was detained for two days.

"They beat him senseless," Smolens said. "They hooked electrodes up to his face, threw him against the wall and beat him until he was unconscious. Then they threw cold water on him to wake him up so they could beat him some more."

In December 1985, police again showed up at Bellini’s apartment. This time, he was whisked off to an internment camp in the Albanian town of Fier where, for five years, Bellini would live without visitors, letters or news from the outside world.

"I was beaten all the time," he said. "I was younger than anyone else and they wanted to make an example out of me."

In October 1990, Bellini was shuttled out of the prison camp and into the military, where he was given a pickax and shovel and ordered to dig bunkers for two years.

During this time, his isolation continued. Even when members of his family died, he was not granted leave to attend their funerals.Conditions began to improve with multi-party elections in 1991. A year later, Albanians ushered in their first democratically elected president.

When Bellini was discharged from the military in 1992 he was hopeful that his fortunes and those of all Albanians would change for the better.

His name was placed on the lists of the Association of Political Prosecuted Persons and Bellini began the work of recouping his family’s pre-communist belongings and fighting for better living conditions and the right to build on his eighth-grade education.

"He thought things would improve but it was still a police state," Mendel said

For the next five years, police and government officials kept an eye on Bellini and those who shared his vision of true reform.

He was arrested for the last time in 1997, again for speaking out against communist principles he felt were still in place. Beaten again,he was admitted to a prison hospital, from which he escaped.

While recouping at an aunt’s house, Bellini decided it was time to leave Albania. With special police and the secret service interrogating his family as to his whereabouts, he boarded a plane to Newark, N.J., with a fake passport.

"The asylum officer who interviewed him found substance in Jimmy’s story," Smolens said. "He was very straightforward about it."

It’s been more than five years since Bellini touched down in the U.S. In that time his family, business, circle of friends and vocabulary have grown immensely.

He is thankful for what he has and hopeful he can continue to build on his American dream.

"Right now I don’t even think about the future," he said. "I can still lose everything -- my family, my son, my business. I try to stay calm but I can’t think about anything but getting the papers."