Hitman who murdered reality TV star’s brother on his own doorstep in gang war jailed for life

A hitman who murdered a reality television star’s brother in a tit-for-tat gang war has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 35 years.

Flamur Beqiri, 36, was shot dead on the doorstep of his home in Battersea, south-west London by Anis Hemissi in front of his screaming wife as she shielded their young son on Christmas Eve in 2019.

Mr Beqiri, the brother of The Real Housewives Of Cheshire star Misse Beqiri, was targeted as part of a feud with a rival organised crime group.

Anis Hemissi, 24, a professional kickboxer, was hired as an assassin to fly into London to carry out the murder, which was meticulously planned for up to six months.

He rode a distinctive ladies’ bike, wore a latex mask and disguised himself as a litter picker to carry out reconnaissance before shooting Mr Beqiri eight times from behind.

What sentences were imposed to those involved?

Hemissi was jailed for life with a minimum term of 35 years at Southwark Crown Court on Friday after he was found guilty of murder and possession of a firearm.

Accomplice Estevan Pino-Munizaga, 35, travelled to the capital for around 14 hours in November 2019 to rent the flat where Hemissi stayed in Oyster Wharf, visit Mr Beqiri’s house nearby and buy the ladies’ bicycle.

He was jailed for 15 years, of which he will serve two thirds, after being acquitted of murder but found guilty of manslaughter.

Clifford Rollox, 31, from Islington, north London, and Dutch national Claude Isaac Castor, 31, from Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, were each jailed for three years after being found guilty of perverting the course of justice, having been hired locally to clean up and remove evidence, including the gun, from the flat.

They will serve half.

What did the judge say?

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said: “Flamur Beqiri, a Swedish citizen with Albanian origins, was suspected of involvement in international drug dealing and other serious crime.

“He was also a son, a partner and a father.

“His children will never know him and nothing the court does can comfort them, or reconcile those who loved him to their loss.

“Anis Hemissi, on the evidence there is no doubt that, aged just 22, with no previous convictions, in 2019 you were a gun for hire.

“The intricate planning that enabled you to arrive in London just a few days before shooting that man dead in front of his family as they were walking to their front door on Christmas Eve, also enabled you to leave the country within hours of his death.

“This was international crime at its most brutal.

“You carried out an audacious execution intended to induce terror in south-west London in those associated with Flamur Beqiri.

“But not only in this city.

“The impact was felt thousands of miles away because its origin is in the battle between callous gangs who disregard borders to commit crime, including targeted killings.”

Who was Flamur Beqiri?

Beqiri married Debora Krasniqi in Cernobbio, by Lake Como, Italy, and she told the Grace Ormonde Wedding Style magazine they “fell deeply in love” at the wedding of his sister, Misse.

The father-of-two posed as a record label boss but was known to have been involved in the international drugs trade since 2007 as a key player in the gang led by Daniel Petrovski, 38.

His close associate and friend, Naief Adawi, 37, who was jailed for eight years in Denmark over one of the country’s biggest ever heists, was targeted by gunmen outside his Malmo apartment in 2019, dropping his newborn baby daughter while running away.

They both survived but his partner, Karolin Hakim, 31, was shot multiple times and killed in a murder linked to associates of rival crime boss Dane Amir Mekky, 24, who was also involved in large-scale trafficking of cocaine and cannabis.

When was Hemissi arrested?

Hemissi, who flew into London on December 20 and left the country to go to Copenhagen, Denmark, in the early hours of Christmas Day, was arrested on his return following a holiday in Thailand and extradited back to the UK.

The jury was not told that he had previously been a suspect in the murder of a man shot dead near Hemissi’s father’s house in Malmo but never charged.

His barrister, David Harounoff, said that, although Hemissi must have been known to the Mekky organised crime group, he denies ever having been a member.

“It is clear he was not the protagonist in this.

“It is also clear he was nowhere near, or close to, the persons who organised this murder.”

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