A Swedish hitman has been found guilty of 'meticulously' murdering a reality TV star’s brother.
Flamur Beqiri, 36, was shot dead on the doorstep of his £1.7 million home in Battersea, south-west London, in front of his screaming wife as she shielded their two-year-old son on Christmas Eve 2019.
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Beqiri, the brother of The Real Housewives Of Cheshire star, Misse Beqiri, was a kingpin in an international drugs gang.
He was targeted as part of a feud with a rival organised crime group headed by 24-year-old Amir Mekky.
Gunman Anis Hemissi, also 24, disguised in a latex mask, opened fire 10 times with a pistol, hitting Beqiri with eight bullets from behind.
Professional kickboxer Hemissi, who had earlier disguised himself as a litter picker to carry out renaissance, was found guilty of murder and possession of a firearm at Southwark Crown Court on Friday after a two-month trial.
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The court heard three other Swedes had also flown to the capital in the weeks and days before the shooting, which had been planned for up to six months.
Estevan Pino-Munizaga, 35, was acquitted of murder but found guilty of an alternative charge of manslaughter.
Tobias Andersson, 32, and Bawer Karaer, 23, were acquitted of both charges.
Clifford Rollox, 31, from Islington, north London, and Dutch national, Claude Isaac Castor, 31, from Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, were found guilty of perverting the course of justice after being hired locally to clean up the flat where the men had stayed.
They were seen removing a large suitcase on Christmas Day, but police were on the scene before they could finish the job and evidence recovered included a ripped up flight ticket stub including Hemissi’s name.
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Senior Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor, Louise Attrill, said the murder was part of a 'a tit-for-tat rivalry between two very significant organised crime groups'.
Beqiri, who had joint Swedish and Albanian nationality, claimed to be in the music business but had had been involved in the international drugs trade since 2007 as part of a gang led by Daniel Petrovski, 38.
A ladies' bike was used by Hemissi to carry out reconnaissance on three days prior to the murder, once dressed as a street cleaner, wearing a latex mask, sunglasses and high-vis work clothes, while holding the litter picker and black bin bag.
The outfit and bike were abandoned when local resident Jeremy Lyons became suspicious after seeing Hemissi working on both public and private streets, telling the hitman: “Get away from this estate please.”
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Hemissi, who flew into London on December 20, left the country to go to Copenhagen, Denmark, in the early hours of Christmas Day.
He was arrested on his return following a holiday in Thailand.
Detective Sergeant Brett Skowron said: “This murder was meticulously planned by the suspects and involved a number of different men travelling to the UK in the months leading up to Mr Beqiri being fatally shot.”
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Rebecca Shepherd