Victory for Mail as one-legged killer is finally booted out after 2-year fight
A ONE-LEGGED Albanian double murderer has finally been extradited to his homeland after a taxpayer-funded two-year battle to avoid extradition.
Saliman Barci, 42, who used a false identity to claim benefits in the UK for 14 years, alleged it would be a breach of his human rights to be sent home.
But the Home Office has now confirmed that the killer was put on a plane back to Albania last week, 14 months after a Daily Mail investigation exposed his case, including claims by his estranged wife that he had confessed to her about the murders.
Barci carried out a robbery for £34,000 with two other men in 1997, but then decided he wanted to keep all the money for himself so shot his accomplices.
He arrived in Britain with his wife in 2002, falsely claiming to be a Kosovan refugee.
In 2009 he was convicted in his absence of murdering the two men in the city of Burrel in northern Albania in July 1997 and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
He was detained in London in 2015. He will now face a 25-year sentence for the murders. The married father-of-three had claimed he would be killed as part of a ‘blood feud’ if he was returned to Albania.
It was also said by his legal team that Barci, who gained British citizenship due to his false refugee claims, would be vulnerable because of a lack of health facilities in prisons at home.
He was escorted back to the Albanian capital Tirana by a team of Interpol officers weeks after one of the country’s most senior judges thwarted his final bid to stay in the UK. At a brief hearing at London’s High Court last month Lady Justice Sharp said: ‘Extradition must be carried out.’
At massive expense to the taxpayer, Barci had relentlessly pursued his battle to avoid being sent back to Albania. Officials confirmed last May he had been granted legal aid to fight extradition.
The estimated cost of trying to extradite Barci is thought to be have been around £100,000. The figure covers his legal bills, court expenses and the cost of keeping him in custody for more than two years.
During the legal battle, the courts heard Barci had ‘deliberately misled’ immigration
Proof Britain’s lost its marbles
From the Mail, May 21, 2016
authorities with a false alias and passport. Posing as a Kosovan asylum seeker, he is said to have slipped into the UK in 2002 while on the run and lived on benefits for over a decade before his true identity became known. By then, he had been awarded British citizenship. In July last year a district judge ruled he should be extradited. Barci, of Northolt, West London, challenged that decision at a High Court hearing in February.
The convicted murderer was not in court as his barrister, Ben Cooper, argued his proposed extradition to Albania would be in breach of three articles of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to life, the ban on torture and a fair trial.
But in her judgment Lady Justice Sharp who heard the case with Mr Justice Sweeney, said: ‘ The evidence falls very far short of establishing a real risk of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment to Barci.’
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘ We can confirm that Saliman Barci was extradited on July 13, and his British passport has been revoked.’
In February, another notorious Albanian double killer was booted out of the UK eight months after he was exposed by a Mail investigation.
Bogus Kosovan refugee Avni Metra, 54, fled to Britain in 1998 – a year after brutally murdering two brothers in his home country – and had argued that his human rights would be breached if he was extradited.
But his legal claim was rejected by the Appeal Court and officials moved swiftly to kick him out of the country.