FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Drug dealers, a kidnapper and a thief are among the ten Albanian criminals on the run, after escaping from prison or ignoring the obligation to report and arrest warrants.
The alarm is raised by the British tabloid, the Daily Mail, which in an article on Wednesday writes that the recent accidental release of prisoners has brought attention back to the number of foreign criminals who evade justice, due to failures by the Prison Service and the police.
The issue is particularly acute among Albanians, who are the largest foreign nationality group in British prisons.
Gangs from the Balkan country are also heavily involved in people smuggling and are known for offering their services to criminals looking to leave the UK.
An undercover Mail journalist – posing as the relative of a man on the run after killing someone – had previously been promised a one-day trip to the Continent for £3,000.
Albanian escapees include Zenel Marku, 35, who was released from HMP Hollesley open prison in Suffolk in 2021 while serving nine years in prison for drug offences.
Many of the offenders are wanted for returning to prison, for violating the conditions of their release.
They include Ajet Xhaja, who ran a cannabis farm in Oxfordshire; Liverpool drug dealers Juli Molla and Steljan Miraka; and Andon Llalla, who lived in Harrogate and has managed to elude police since October 2021.
One of the most disturbing cases involves Klej Doc, a member of a three-man gang who kidnapped a man over a debt, before holding him captive for five days.
The gang abducted the victim from a car park in Reading, along with an innocent bystander who happened to be in the "wrong place, wrong time".
They then stripped the two men naked and beat them repeatedly during a five-day ordeal, which ended when armed police forced their way into the apartment in 2021.
Sentencing Doc and his two accomplices at Reading Crown Court, Judge Heather Norton called the operation 'carefully planned'.
Describing the harrowing experience the victims endured, she added: “They were forced to sleep on the floor, given no water or food, and forbidden to go to the toilet.”
"One of the victims appears to have been abducted, simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed the abduction."
Doci was imprisoned for five years in December 2023, before being released early on parole.
He was summoned again after violating the terms of his release, but he failed to appear and is now wanted.
The other Albanian offenders who are currently on the run are wanted by police for a number of suspected crimes.
Andi Trokthi is wanted in connection with a burglary in Sheffield in January 2023, and Gentian Gega for drug-related offences.
Meanwhile, Emir Shima failed to appear at parole meetings and Jemin Oka avoided a court hearing for violating his identity card.
This comes as police continue to search for another prisoner who was wrongly released.
The issue of accidental releases was thrust into the spotlight last month when migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu from Epping was mistakenly released from Chelmsford High Prison.
Sexual attacker Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, and fraudster Billy Smith, 35, were later released from Wandsworth in error but are now back in custody.
Justice Minister David Lammy recently told the House of Commons that 91 prisoners had been wrongly released in just seven months.
Those were in addition to 262 wrongful releases from prison during the year to March.
Of these, three prisoners are still at large - two British citizens and one foreign national.
The first was in prison for failing to surrender to the police before being released in December 2024.
The second was in prison for a Class B drug offense, until his release in August 2024.
The third was in prison for aggravated theft and was wrongly released in June 2025.
A government spokesman told the Daily Mail: "Offenders who escape custody or evade arrest face serious consequences and could spend longer in prison."
"We are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that those who breach their release conditions are returned to prison, with almost all offenders back behind bars within six months."/ Daily Mail
Lini një Përgjigje