Mehmet Ismail Shehu (January 10, 1913 – December 18, 1981) was an Albanian communist politician who served as the Prime Minister of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania from 1954 to 1981.

Shehu was Chief of the General Staff of the Albanian People's Army from 1946 to 1948 and later served as Minister of the Interior from 1948 to 1954.

Shehu was often regarded as the right hand of Enver Hoxha and played a central role in Albania's political leadership during that era.

Shehu graduated in 1932 at the Tirana Albanian Vocational High School funded by the American Red Cross.

Unsuccessful in finding employment within the Ministry of Agriculture he managed to get a scholarship to attend the Nunziatella military academy of Naples, Italy.

He joined the Communist Party of Spain and was a machine-gunner[5] who rose to the command of the Fourth Battalion of the XIIth Garibaldi Brigade.

Due to his military expertise, he quickly rose to become the commander of the 1st Partisan Assault Brigade in August 1943.

In 1948, Shehu "expurgated" from the party the element who "tried to separate Albania from the Soviet Union and lead her under Belgrade's influence".

His relationship with Hoxha was damaged, however, when his son married a woman who had anti-Communist relatives who lived in the United States.

[12] On December 17, 1981, he was found dead in his bedroom, (lying in his bed, wearing sunglasses, a shirt and pyjamas) with a bullet wound to his chest.

He had reached out to the governments of some western nations like Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany in an attempt to form diplomatic ties with them.

[12] One of Shehu's surviving sons later launched a campaign to prove that his father had, in fact, been murdered.

After the fall of Communism and after his release from prison in 1991, Mehmet Shehu's younger son Bashkim started a search for his father's remains.

A fictionalised account of Mehmet Shehu's fall and death is the subject of Ismail Kadare's novel The Successor (2003).

[21][22] Additionally, his ideology was sometimes perceived as reflecting elements of bourgeois nationalism, emphasizing the interests of certain elite groups within Albanian society.