FLASH
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The Court of Appeal in Canada has ruled that Çngjëll Brahimi, accused of murdering a police officer and his son in 2000 in Fier, will not be extradited from Canada.
The news was reported by Canadian media , according to which judges stated that the evidence was not sufficient to order his extradition and imprisonment.
Brahimi was sentenced to “life imprisonment” for the murder of police officer Astrit Braçe and his eight-year-old son, Asllan, in a gunfight on August 10, 2000 in Fier. He escaped and was later arrested in Canada, where he hid under the identity of Piro Kota, in order to evade Albanian justice.
"The [trial] judge considered that the evidence as a whole was not sufficient to order imprisonment," the decision issued Friday in Montreal said.
Angel Brahimi, 62, no longer has to worry about returning to Eastern Europe, where he faces a long prison sentence in connection with the bloody murder of a senior police officer and his 8-year-old child, which occurred 25 years ago.
Massacre with automatic weapons
According to Albanian authorities, Brahimi wanted revenge for the death of his brother, so he allegedly targeted the head of the investigation while the latter was going to the beach with his family.
“An Audi vehicle emerged from a small wooded area and ambushed them,” the court document states. “A man emerged carrying an automatic firearm. He fired several shots […].”
An 8-year-old child died in the attack, while the police officer was seriously injured. A short time later, one of the attackers found him near a river and executed him.
The deceased's wife identified Brahimi almost five months later through a photograph. Albanian authorities then tried to arrest the suspect, but he had already fled, first to Greece, then to Canada, where he even obtained citizenship.
Incredible evidence
However, Brahim's past was revealed and he was found. His legal team managed to show that the trial held in Albania had been flawed.
“The evidence is so flawed and unbelievable that extradition would be a miscarriage of justice,” explained Judge Alexandre Boucher in 2023, noting that during the trial there, the deceased’s wife even contradicted herself by choosing the wrong photo to identify the suspect.
The Attorney General of Canada, acting on behalf of the Republic of Albania, had appealed the case, alleging several errors on the part of the judge. But at the end of the process, Quebec's highest court ruled that there had been no violation.
“He verified the sufficiency and reliability of the certified evidence presented in support of the extradition request,” the Court of Appeal ruled. “He determined that it had a manifest defect and that there was a real risk that it was fundamentally flawed.”
Furthermore, it was pointed out that even if Brahim's escape might have suggested that it was the behavior of a guilty person, it could also correspond to someone wanting to "avoid being unjustly accused."
Angel Brahimi was represented by criminal attorneys Andrew Barbacki, Jordan Trevick, and Sara Abdel-Malik.
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