
The next trial against Franc Çopja has been held again, while lawyers have analyzed and compared the murder of Ardit Spahiu in November 2020, to find the 'hand' of the perpetrators.
" You are not trying ordinary criminals, but soldiers in a private war ," the two civil party lawyers told jurors in Brussels on Monday, tasked with trying Franc Çopjan (Gergely), Mikael Qosje and seven other defendants for the murder of Ardit Spahiu, an Albanian citizen executed in Molenbeek on November 27, 2020, foreign media report.
According to lawyer Virginie Taelman, the modus operandi for the murder of Ardit Spahiu was the same as that of other murders committed in Albania in the years following the start of the conflict between the Alibej clan and the Çopja and Qosja clans, a conflict that began in 2017 or 2018.
"Cars, men, guns and a barrage of bullets. It's always the same pattern, here or there," she summed up. "It's clear that Ardit Spahiu was killed because he was close to the Alibej clan, the rival clan of the Çopja and Qosja clans."
On Monday, the civil party asked the jury to find Franc Gergelyn and Mikael Qosjan guilty of ordering the murder. They are the two “order givers” who acted “thousands of kilometers away” from Brussels. According to the civil party, they prepared a “methodically planned execution” of Ardit Spahiu.
"Direct force was not enough" to kill their enemy, who knew he was threatened, the two lawyers added. To achieve their goal, "the betrayal of a friend" was necessary, a role that, according to them, Elton Roci played.
Relying on excerpts of conversations from Sky ECC, lawyer Virginie Taelman described Franc Gergelyn, known as Çopja, as the “engine of murder” and “ the architect who signs the plans from his ivory tower ,” motivated by his clan’s revenge, ego, and arrogance.
She described Mikael Qosjan as the "head of the construction site", who was in charge of "informant management".
Spahiu was shot in an assassination attempt on November 27, 2020, while he was a passenger in a vehicle. He initially managed to flee, but was pursued on foot by two masked men, who executed him. The investigation into Spahiu's murder gained momentum after the decryption of the SKY ECC platform. Nine suspects were eventually identified, including Franc Gergelyn, a key figure in the Çopja clan. According to federal police, he and his brothers operated from Dubai and were involved in cocaine trafficking between South America and Europe.
After the theft of 49 kilograms of cocaine from a London apartment belonging to the Copja clan, violence between the two criminal groups escalated. The file is filled with contract killings carried out by both sides. The murder of Ardit Spahiu, who fled to Belgium in 2019 fearing for his life, is considered a continuation of the conflict between these two clans.