After landing at Rinas Airport, the former leader of the Durrës Gang, Lulëzim Berisha, was escorted under extreme security measures to Detention Center 313 in the capital.
Berisha arrived on Albanian soil from Spain, where he was arrested in December 2023, pursuant to an international warrant from SPAK and a court decision that he did not enforce. After 1 year and 3 months in the Spanish state, where he was found with a transformed appearance and a fake Bulgarian identity card, the former leader of the Durrës gang fought a legal battle to avoid extradition to Albania.
He lost this battle in the first instance and in the Appeal. With the Albanian justice system at his disposal, within 5 days Berisha will face the Special Court, for the verification of the security measure "prison arrest" taken in absentia in 2020.
This hearing, as well as the ongoing trial against him in the Special Court, brings Berisha back as a defendant in the same building, once the seat of the Serious Crimes Court, which more than a decade ago handed down a life sentence to him. Currently, Lulëzim Berisha has two criminal cases on his shoulders.
In a trial, where he is co-defendant with six others, including Plaurent Derivshaj and Emiliano Shullazi, Berisha is being tried for involvement in the execution of Klodian Saliu on February 26, 2005 on the Durres-Tirana highway. In the same investigation, Berisha was also suspected of the murder of businessman Vajdin Lamaj, a case that was later dismissed at the request of SPAK.
Berisha's other score with the justice system is almost 6 years of unserved prison time from the sentence he received as the leader of the Durrës gang, responsible for several serious criminal events. As the leader of the gang, Lulzim Berisha was sentenced to life in prison in the First Instance and the Appeal of Serious Crimes, but the Supreme Court in July 2014 reduced the sentence to 25 years.
Two years later, after serving almost 19 years of his sentence, the Durrës Court of Appeal accepted his request for early release and placement on probation.
One of the documents on which he based his claim for release was a letter signed by the former mayor of Durrës at the time, Vangjush Dako, who said that he would employ Berisha in one of the Municipality's directorates.
In December 2021, while Berisha was wanted by the judiciary, the Supreme Court overturned the Appeals Court's decision, thus forcing Berisha's return to prison to serve the remaining years of his prison sentence. (A2 Televizion)
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