A hitman has been found guilty of murdering a reality television star’s brother in “a tit-for-tat rivalry” between two major crime gangs.
Flamur Beqiri, 36, was shot dead on the doorstep of his £1.7m home in Battersea, south-west London, in front of his wife as she shielded their two-year-old son on Christmas Eve 2019.
Beqiri, the brother of The Real Housewives of Cheshire star Misse Beqiri, was a kingpin in an international drugs gang, Southwark crown court was told.
Anis Hemissi, 24, was found guilty of murdering Beqiri as well as possession of a firearm after a two-month trial at the south London court.
Hemissi, a professional kickboxer, disguised himself in a latex mask for the killing and opened fire 10 times with a pistol, hitting Beqiri with eight bullets from behind.
The 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”.
“It is an international assassination which required meticulous planning and involved a group of organised criminals recruiting a team to carry out this shocking and brutal murder,” she said.
Beqiri, who had joint Swedish and Albanian nationality, claimed to be in the music business but had been involved in the international drugs trade since 2007 as part of a gang led by Daniel Petrovski, 38, the court was told.
He had been a target since the summer of 2019, and by November the rival gang’s planning had stepped up as an associate, Estevan Pino-Munizaga, travelled to London for about 14 hours.
Pino-Munizaga rented a flat in Oyster Wharf, visited Beqiri’s house nearby and bought a distinctive ladies’ bicycle with a basket. Another associate bought a litter picker on a later trip to the capital.
The bike was used by Hemissi to carry out reconnaissance three days before the murder, once dressed as a street cleaner, wearing a latex mask, sunglasses and hi-vis work clothes, while holding the litter picker and a black bin bag.
The outfit and bike were abandoned when a local resident, Jeremy Lyons, became suspicious after seeing Hemissi working on public and private streets, telling the hitman: “Get away from this estate please.”
Hemissi acquired a replacement bike, which he parked on the Thames path and used to make his getaway after carrying out the shooting.
Hemissi, who flew into London on 20 December, left the country to go to Copenhagen, Denmark, in the early hours of Christmas Day. He was arrested on his return after a holiday in Thailand.
DS 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.”
Estevan Pino-Munizaga, 35, was acquitted of murder found guilty of an alternative charge of manslaughter. Tobias Andersson, 32, and Bawer Karaer, 23, also from Sweden, were acquitted of both charges.
Clifford Rollox, 31, from Islington, north London, and Claude Isaac Castor, 31, a Dutch national 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 killers had stayed.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said she would sentence those found guilty next Friday.
