An ethnic Albanian who has been in hiding in Quebec for more than 20 years after allegedly shooting a police officer and his young child with a machine gun is now contesting his extradition, questioning the justice system there.
• Also read: An Albanian assassin was hiding in Quebec and shot dead a police officer and an eight-year-old child
“All we have is the victim’s wife who gave a statement five months later and identified herself [le suspect] on a photo parade. According to the witness statements, the attackers were masked,” said Andrew Barbacki of the defense this Tuesday in the Montreal courthouse, hoping that Ëngjëll Brahimi will not be extradited to Albania.
That’s because Brahimi, 60, faces a long prison sentence in Eastern Europe, where he was convicted in absentia in 2000 for the villainous murder of a high-ranking police officer and a child.
Like in a movie
According to Albanian authorities, Brahimi wanted to avenge the death of his brother, who had been killed in a shootout with police several years earlier. He is then said to have targeted the head of the criminal investigation department in a district of the Balkan state.
And when he wanted to spend a day at the beach with his family, he was caught in an ambush worthy of an action film of the time. At that moment, two people armed with machine guns and military-caliber ammunition fired at his vehicle, killing an eight-year-old child on board.
“Criminal, you killed my son!” the child’s mother said desperately as the senior officer fled.
The latter was found by a river and shot in cold blood. His body was recovered days later.
leak
According to the child’s mother, one of the attackers was none other than Brahimi, who had fled to Canada under a false identity. And he did so well that he even received Canadian citizenship.
But after years of persecution, the Albanian authorities finally found him. They are now demanding his extradition, but Brahimi’s legal team is against it because they consider the evidence to be unreliable.
Me Barbacki, assisted by Messrs. Jordan Trevick and Sara Abdel-Malik, also found a journalist who had gone to the scene of the tragedy and whose collected information contradicted the official version.
The lawyer also stressed that under Albanian law Brahimi would be entitled to a new trial if he was extradited, as Brahimi was tried in his absence. So if Brahimi is sent back to Albania, the court should ensure that it is on the condition that he is retried, Mr Barbacki argued.
The hearing before Judge Alexandre Boucher is scheduled to last two days.
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