How did the execution of Arben Lleshi happen?/ Why was Mjaçaj chosen to execute him?

2023-12-20 20:53:00, Kronika CNA

How did the execution of Arben Lleshi happen?/ Why was Mjaçaj chosen to

Tonight, in the program "On target" by journalist Klodiana Lala, the incident that happened in Peqin prison where Sokol Mjacaj executed Arben Lleshi with bullets and injured Indrit Shaqjan was discussed.

The journalist has extracted some details from the event, also mentioning the past of the victim and the perpetrator, both with a very large criminal load.

In the show, details of how the murder happened while standing up and questions about why Mjacaj was chosen for the elimination of Arben Lleshi are revealed.

Part of the documentary

Was this a crime, according to the testimony given by Mjaçaj, after Arben Lleshi's refusal to stay in the sector where the latter had his cell, or was it a mafia assassination organized by people who had open conflicts outside the prison with Arben Lleshi?

Who was Arben Lleshi and why outside the prison was he required to be eliminated at all costs? What is his story of the clash with the Hoxha tribe, which has caused in the last 10 years, many killed, disappeared and kidnapped.

"From the search in the premises of the building adapted for meetings with family members, a firearm with the number J132766 was found, where inside the case, 5 cartridges with a hit capsule were found and seized as material evidence. During the inspection of the scene, red stains similar to those of human blood were taken with a sterile swab. Likewise, Sokol Mjaçaj's accommodation room was inspected, where it was found that the toilet was not properly assembled and the cassette was out of order," say the investigations.

According to the unraveled dynamics of the crime that occurred at noon on December 15 in the High Security Prison in Peqin, just an hour before he committed the murder, Sokol Mjaçaj was in the ventilation facilities of this prison, together with other convicts. While Arben Lleshi was in his cell, which he reportedly shared with the other convict with life imprisonment, Indrit Shaqja. Precisely at 1:52 p.m., Sokol Mjaçaj is thought to have headed to sector no. 3 of the Peqin prison while he was in the air.

Although this was not his sector, surprisingly he was not stopped in his direction by any of the institution's security guards, but continued to walk calmly for several meters, until the cell where Arben Lleshi was located. Where he is said to have stopped and after calling his name, upon seeing his victim approach the cell window, he pointed a pistol-type weapon and fired several bullets at him, leaving him dead on the spot. , but also leaving injured the other prisoner, Indrit Shaqja.

"From the investigations up to these moments, it results that, on December 15, 2023 at around 13:52 in the premises of the internal regime of IEVP Peqin, the citizen Sokol Mjaçaj (sentenced to life imprisonment, designated by court decision high security) shot with a pistol in the direction of the other convicted citizen Arben Lleshi, leaving him dead and Indrit Shaqja, leaving him injured. After that, this citizen threatened the service employees with this weapon and was isolated with a weapon in his hand in the premises of meetings with family members in this prison", according to the investigations.

Just as if he had committed the cold-blooded crime, Sokol Mjaçaj had thought through everything in detail, or someone close to him had taken care of every detail, how he should act either during the implementation of the plan to kill Arben Lleshi, but also how to retreat into a cell and ask from there, that the senior leaders of the police and the prison come to meet him.

This was probably a way thought by him, not only to escape the violence of the guards, but also of other prisoners, who could have connected with Arben Lleshi and mistreated him at that moment.

"On December 15, 2023, at around 1:52 p.m., I was in the office premises. During this time, I heard on the radio that something was happening in building B, in the ventilation facilities, and that an ambulance had to be called immediately. At this moment, I left the office and went to the internal regime, where I saw that two convicts were wounded by gunshots. I learned from the police officers scheduled for interviews and meetings with family members that the convict Sokol Mjaçaj was in the meeting room and had a weapon with him. After approaching the door, the prisoner told me that; "I want the prosecutor because I want to hand over the weapon." That was the only request he had.

After many negotiations, together with the general director, we went, gave him a pair of handcuffs, with which he handcuffed himself and left the weapon on the ground as we told him", testified Kamber Hoxha, director of IEVP Peqin.

In his first testimony given to the investigators, Sokol Mjaçaj, as expected, was reticent, even indifferent, creating a far from credible story about the police officers, as well as about the crime weapon.

"We went quickly and I approached the front door first, with the intention of opening it. At this moment, Sokol Mjaçaj pointed a firearm at me, of the pistol type, and said: 'Chief, don't come any closer! Don't get into bloodshed with me, because I have nothing to do with you'.

I asked him to put the gun down and talk to clarify the circumstances, as I currently did not know what had happened. At this time, the Director of the Institution approached, who ordered me to close the door and continued to communicate with the convict, calling him repeatedly to calm down and put down his weapon", stated Qani Muça, specialist of the Special Biz Regime -41.

But while he made this statement, it was questionable how he could have secured such a weapon and above all kept it unexposed to the security guards in the institution and was it possible for a prisoner to possess the weapon without the knowledge of a renegade within the ranks of the Beijing prison guards?

According to the investigative group, Sokol Mjaçaj, was moving armed within the premises of the Peqin prison for nearly 20 days, but until now it has become impossible to learn from whom he had obtained this weapon.

"Sub-inspector Indrit Dubali, briefly and concisely, explained to us that the detainee Sokol Mjaçaj, when he had left the airfield to go to the room, through the window of the room where the incident happened, had communicated with the convict Indrit Shaqja and had asked to call, to communicate, the convict Arben Lleshi.

As soon as the convict Arben Lleshi approached the window, Sokol Mjaçaj shot him with a gun. At the same time, he also pointed a gun at the surveillance employee, Indri Dubali, asking him to open the gate to get out of the ventilation section.

Sub-inspector Indrit Dubali, under the threat of a gun, had opened the gate and the armed prisoner had run towards the meeting rooms of Building B, entering them, where we found him. Meanwhile, several other convicts, friends with the injured Arben Lleshi and Indrit Shaqja, had gone running behind him.

Regarding the control of security elements, the last control was carried out on Tuesday, but I do not know who the people were who carried it out. Here I want to emphasize that the control on Tuesday is carried out by the specialist of the relevant regime and only the one on Saturday is carried out under the direction of the Chief of Police. I have never participated in the control of the premises where the above convicts were accommodated, as I have carried out the control of the Detention and Special Regime Section", further stated Qani Muça, specialist of the Special Regime Biz-41 .

Despite the different convictions of the investigators, Sokol Mjaçaj continued to stick to his idea that he killed Arben Lleshin because he had a fight with him, this according to him, since he had not accepted him in the sector.

"Sokol Mjaçaj, from the time I came to the post of director of IEVP Peqin on November 22, 2023, I found him housed in the building described as the building of 41-Biz. Where he was accommodated there alone in the room.

Because 41-Biz was to be opened, and the sectors where about 20 prisoners were accommodated had to be emptied, we arranged Sokol Mjaçaj on the second floor of building B. From the communications I had with the ventilation workers, I was told that Sokol had asked them to go and get coffee in the room. He went from the ventilation located on the first floor to the second floor where his room was located, then he went down again to go out to the ventilation square. The room where the two injured are is the first room, on the left on the first floor, at a distance of about 5 meters from the ventilation squares", testified Kamber Hoxha, director of IEVP Peqin.

After committing the crime, Sokol put the pistol to the police officer's neck, but the prosecution has its own doubts that Sokol Mjaçaj carried out the execution against payment, and that the murder is related to the dark past of the victim, Arben Lleshi. Unresolved feuds that he seems to have left outside his prison cell, where he was serving a life sentence.

"Sokol Mjaçaj was previously in building A, and 3 months ago he moved to building B, entrance no. 2. Four days ago, he was accommodated in room no. 9, on the second floor, sector no. 1. During this accommodation, he was accompanied by a security employee and he took his belongings from the room where he was staying.

What I want to say is that the room and physical inspection of Sokol Mjaçaj was done about 1 month and 15 days ago, where no illegal items were found. The last meeting that Sokol made was about 3 months ago and as far as I can remember, the meeting was with his sister-in-law or brother. As far as Arben Lleshi is concerned, he was accommodated on the first floor, Sector no. 2, building," says the testimony of Vilson Shima, Head of the Regime.

The mafia execution of Arben Lleshi inside the cell, led the investigative group to cut 18 arrest warrants, where they were accompanied by current employees of the prison police, its former directors, as well as senior officials on duty of this institution. Meanwhile, for Sokol Mjaçaj, there was an order for his placement in the strict Biz-41 regime, signed by the Minister of Justice, Ulsi Manja. Which order Sokol Mjaçaj preceded, speeding up the crime and shooting the gun at Arben Lleshi, before he was isolated in the regime that would then disable him for an indefinite period of time to carry out various movements inside the prison.

"When the incident happened around 1:45 p.m., I was at the meeting premises. There I heard on the radio that they were asking for 'Help from the prison security group'. Sokol Mjaçaj was sitting inside the meeting room, I only saw that he had something black in his hand, but I didn't see it well, as we were scared.

As far as I remember, the last meeting he had was in the middle of September, with his brother Paulin Mjaçaj and with a Valentina Mjaçaj, I don't know what it was about. Sokol was not considered the type to enter into conflicts. I know that he was alone in the room", testified Brunilda Hyra, companion in the internal regime.

But to return to Arben Lleshit, what is his past that led him to this end, thoughtless of him? Everything seems to start in 2012, when only 26 years old, Arben Lleshi lived in Great Britain, where he is said to have committed a monstrous crime. According to the British media, he was involved in the execution and then mutilation of the body of Agim Hoxha, another Albanian who meanwhile lived in England. Whose body, after being killed, was later found burnt in a car, where in relation to this event, the brother of Arben Lleshi was also arrested at that time, who is said to have helped him to hide the evidence.

The English media wrote at that time that the victim was killed in another place from where he was later found burned in the car. Suspicions mostly focused on the disruption of drug deals, but also on the origin of the perpetrator and the victim, who are said to have come from the same area in Albania, Mati, while living and working together. Which led to their first thought, that the reason that led to this monstrous crime was the breakdown of the deals, in the jobs they had started together in the trafficking of narcotics.

Arben Lleshi was tried and sentenced for this crime by a court in England, but four years later in 2016, he was extradited to Albania to serve the rest of his sentence in his homeland. But it seems that the Hoxha tribe never forgave the Lleshi tribe for the loss of their relative. Even immediately after the murder of Agim Hoxha in Great Britain, and the handcuffing of Arben Lleshi as the author of this execution, they did not delay in taking revenge on his close family members, this time moving the scene of the crime from England to Albania.

The first victim of this payment would be Xhavit Lleshi, the uncle of Arben Lleshi, who at this moment was still on trial in the British state. He was executed in 2013, in a place called Pujkë, in Burrel, but in such events there are no signs of reconciliation and this was also seen in the blood saga that followed between the two families. This time, three years later, the next victim would be Xhavit's brother, Hajredin Lleshi, or the other uncle of Arben Lleshi, who was executed in May 2016, but the Hoxha tribe's grudge and fury towards that Lleshi seems that it would not stop with just these two victims.

The next target would be Artan Lleshi, the son of Hajredini, one of Arben Lleshi's already murdered uncles, who was kidnapped under unclear circumstances in 2017, in the city of Burrel, where at that time he was reportedly seen for last time in Kamez to then disappear without a trace. The same fate seems to have happened in 2020 to the 22-year-old Klevis Lleshi, the son of Xhavit, the other uncle of Arben Lleshi, killed four years earlier.

A lot of blood and for a murder in Great Britain, which in the span of 10 years, ended with the execution of the one who was the initiator of this bloody saga, by one hand, and above all in prison, by which he never expected.

"At the time of the incident, I was outside in the ventilation and I was waiting for the prisoners to enter sector no. 1. At 13:50 I heard a noise coming from the first floor of the prison. At this moment, I saw that the prisoner, Sokol Mjaçaj turned back with a gun in his hand, which he pointed at me. He addressed me with the words: 'Open the main ventilation door, otherwise I will kill'.

At gunpoint I was forced to open the door, as I was frightened and confused. The moment I opened the door he ran around the meeting place and the kitchen. He didn't know where to go, he was looking for a way to escape. I ran after him with 2 other prisoners to stop him, specifically with the citizens Indrit Shaqa who was injured and Tomorr Çaushin", testified Indrit Dubali, ventilation observer in Peqin prison.

But this event, which took place inside a high-security prison, the first of its kind, in the way the execution was carried out, according to investigators, would not have happened if the appropriate control measures were taken over the prisoners, which apparently, in the case of Sokol Mjaçaj, not only did it not happen, but the regulation was openly violated and in complete violation of the law. And this violation also happened on the day when Sokol Mjaçaj went out for airing and had to return to his cell.

"I have no knowledge about the weapon, whether Sokol got it from somewhere or someone gave it to him. By regulation, when convicts leave or enter the ventilation, they are checked by the security group and the troop specialist, but in their absence, in this case, they were not checked", says the testimony of Gani Muça, sub-inspector IEVP Peqin.

But it is still unexplained why the authorities of this institution, in this case IEVP Peqin, had not yet implemented the order to place Sokol Mjaçaj in the 41 bis regime, but this order had to be first distributed in the media, an hour before Mjaçaj committed the crime. And the latter accelerated the execution of Arben Lleshi.

"Following the investigative actions, there are reasonable suspicions that the service employees did not fulfill their functional duties, as they did not perform the physical control, which consists of the prisoner leaving the room for ventilation and returning from there to his room during the day of the event as well as in the previous days", it is stated in the investigations.

Likewise, another violation found by the investigative group is the fact that Sokol Mjacaj was not checked even during the escort from one building to another, which increases the suspicions that he was helped in this action to execute Arben Lleshin, also from internal service employees. Without their help, it would be impossible for Sokol Mjaçaj not only to secure the weapon with which he committed the crime, but also to walk calmly with this weapon during his movements, from one building to another.

"Also, during the transfer from the premises of the building named as 41 biz where he was accommodated to the high security building B where he was recently placed, for the convict Sokol Mjacaj it turns out that the standard procedure of physical control and items was not carried out personal as provided by the security scheme. But even more serious is the fact that the serious event that happened in this prison was not reported by the information office in this IEVP, trying to hide it as an event, or to give it another dynamic, which increases the weight even more the fault of the authorities of this prison. But also the possibility of manipulating the facts.

"The scanner has been defective since November 21, 2023 and was fixed only 3 or 4 days before the crime took place. Monitoring is carried out with security cameras and police officers who observe from above. I communicated with Sokol for about an hour and a half, after he entered the meeting room. He was very calm in communication. He told me that I put the gun in a month ago and that he had kept it hidden in the milk carton. He said that I did this when I received the news from the media that I joined 41-Biz", the director of IEVP Peqin, Kamber Hoxha, further testified.

During this time, Sokol had meetings with his brother and a person with the initials I. R, who introduced himself as his cousin, but what did the orderer, Sokol Mjaçaj, offer to kill Arben Lleshi in the cell? What security has he received in exchange for committing this crime, when he is known to be sentenced to life imprisonment, and nothing could save him from suffering this sentence, from which cell only death separates him? What have they discovered from his introverted nature, that may have assured them that he is the right person inside the cell who can carry through to the end with complete success, their order, to eliminate Arben Lleshi.

Their last goal is probably a long revenge, where their last target was precisely Arben Lleshi, who is the executioner of their close man in 2012 in Great Britain. Perhaps to understand why the orderers went to the name of Sokol Mjaçaj and to his cold-blooded and loyal nature in committing the crime, perhaps the way he committed his first two crimes, at a very young age, should be seen, but also the fact that he was merciless against any target, not even stopping at children.

This is if you look at the first crime he committed, in 2010, when he was only 15 years old, where he killed a minor, a citizen with the initials AL in the village of Shale in Dukagjin, while he was grazing cattle, with the sole purpose of robbed of a gold pendant he was wearing around his neck. A crime for which he was sentenced to only four years in prison, but just one month after he was released from serving this sentence, Sokol Mjaçaj committed another crime, this time a double one. He ambushed on the road and killed in cold blood two Czech tourists, Michal Svatos (Mihal Svatos) and Ana Kosinova, who meanwhile were traveling on the road of Dukagjin, in the village of Prekal, in the highlands of Shkodra, where again this time in the center of Justice was served on the charges and a dubious decision by the Court of Shkodra, which allowed Sokol Mjaçaj to be free. Despite his first crime, where he had killed a minor, after Mjaçaj was initially sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment, as an accomplice in the murder of a child.

A second decision of the Court of Appeal of Shkodra on January 4, 2013 reduced Mjacaj's sentence from 10 to 4 years in prison, granting him freedom a month before he committed the murder of two Czech tourists, Michal Svatos (Mihal Svatos) and Ana Kosinov. Mjaçaj claimed in his testimony that he intended to rob the car of Czech tourists, "but he killed them for fear that they would take his gun."

But the last deadly assassination attempt on Arben Lleshi was not the first in a row for him, inside the prisons in Albania, and perhaps precisely because of this fact, the security measures against his life should have been increased. Five years ago he was stabbed inside Peqin prison and maybe there should be a more in-depth investigation into who was interested in their elimination. Before surely the same orderlies found another executioner and an efficient way, this time with a firearm, to carry out his elimination, as it did.