The Ministry of Justice has won a legal battle in the Royal Court of Justice in London to extradite an Albanian convicted of raping a minor in Bulqiza on February 29, 2016.
Lawyers from the Department of Foreign Relations at the Ministry of Justice, together with British lawyer Amanda Bostock, rejected the claims in the appeal initiated by Denis Havalja, which aimed to block his extradition to Albania.
The 37-year-old Albanian was sentenced in absentia by the Mati Court in 2017 to 5 years in prison for raping a 13-year-old girl, a decision that was upheld by the Tirana appeals court a year later.
The Mati Court website indicates that the victim told police that he was on his way to school when a Range Rover stopped and the driver forcibly took him inside.
To escape Albanian justice, he went to England and used the name Dashamir Havalja. In the decision of the High Court in London, obtained by Top Channel journalist Muhamed Veliu, it is indicated that in 2015 he would be sentenced to 18 months in prison for drug distribution and would be deported.
He returned to England and was sentenced again on April 13, 2023 to 6 months in prison for assaulting an emergency worker. At the end of this sentence he was taken to a deportation center from where it was discovered that he was wanted by Interpol Tirana.
The Westminster Magistrate Court on December 6, 2024, allowed the extradition, but Denis Havalja appealed to the High Court.
According to the High Court decision in London, his lawyers attempted to block the extradition with the argument that during his time in prison in England since May 2025, he has had regular sessions with mental health doctors and has been diagnosed as suffering from a mixed anxiety and depression disorder.
Judge Mrs. Justice Eady dismissed the appeal, giving the green light to the Ministry of Justice for his extradition to Albania./ TCH