EXCLUSIVE: Fugitive 'triple killer' tops list of foreign wanted 'murderers' who came to hide in UK

A DANGEROUS fugitive triple murderer tops a list of foreign killers who it is feared are on the loose in the UK.

Large numbers of wanted convicted or suspected killers from overseas have seen the UK as a safe haven.

Alongside convicted triple killer Sokol Hoxha, pictured in an Albanian wanted appeal above, police are seeking the whereabouts of a number of other fugitives who have yet to serve sentences for murder or even stand trial in their home countries.

Several other fugitives have recently been arrested and are now fighting extradition often with legal aid.

About 25 extradition cases concerning overseas murders have had hearings at Westminster Magistrates' Court this year with several others concerning people convicted of attempted murderers or suspected of being the attacker.

Last Saturday Antal Balogh, 64, from Yeading Lane in Hayes, west London, was brought before Westminster Magistrates' Court after being arrested on a European Arrest Warrant issued by France.

He is wanted there in connection with a murder.

He did not resist extradition and is in the process of being extradited.

A day earlier Latvian Deniss Ivanovs, 31, appeared at the court after being arrested on an EAW issued by his home country.

He is accused of a murder there committed in a group.

Ivanovs also consented to extradition and will be returned to Latvia.

Meanwhile, Hoxha, 45, has evaded capture for more than 23 years for three murders committed in two different countries within the space of five months.

Police thought they finally tracked him down in Birmingham last month, when a man of the same name was arrested and a knife seized during a domestic incident.

But the suspect, who was remanded in custody for two weeks, had to be released after the extradition judge said Belgium had provided insufficient evidence he was the wanted murderer.

Hoxha is wanted in Albania to serve a 25-year sentence for the March 1997 murder of two brothers who he shot dead with an accomplice.

He then fled to Belgium with wife Brunilda Dervishi, but shot her dead just five months later in a Brussels cafe in August 1997 after seeing her with another man.

He has been on the run, wanted by both countries, ever since, being convicted in his absence of the two murders in Albania in 2000

and later sentenced to life in his absence in Belgium in June 2010.

West Midlands Police believed they caught the elusive fugitive on August 27.

That Sokol Hoxha was brought before Westminster Magistrates' Court (pictured above), but, although he used an Albanian interpreter, he claimed to be Serbian.

He also had identity documents giving a date of birth differing to the killer's by a day less than two years, making him 47.

The court heard neither the Belgian or Albanian authorities had DNA or fingerprints for Hoxha and just two photographs of him, one from 1997 and a more recent one submitted by a member of the public, were available.

District Judge Paul Goldspring discharged the extradition request saying from the pictures and date of births issue he could not be satisfied he was the wanted killer.

The man was freed and West Midlands Police said no further action would follow about the domestic matter.

An Albanian police source said: "Sokol Hoxha is still wanted by us in relation to these two horrendous murders.

"We have for many years been trying to locate him."

Last week the Met Police issued appeals for information about the whereabouts of two other men wanted over murders in their home countries.

Arunas Kasciukas, 39, (pictured above) is wanted in Lithuania for a murder committed there in October 2018.

He has two missing fingers from his left hand and has links to Dagenham, Forest Gate and Ilford, in east London.

Far from laying low, Kasciukas appears to have been living in plain sight, with Companies House records showing he registered a limited company to an Ilford address in 2019.

The other sought by the Met is Festim Korra, who is wanted in Albania to serve a 22-year jail term for the murder of Hyqmet Pisha who was shot seven times in 1997.

He was able to flee the country before he could be jailed and is thought to have links to east London be using a false identity.

Det Sgt Peter Rance, from the Met’s extradition unit, said: “These men must not be approached. Anyone who recognises any of these men or has information about their whereabouts should call police."

Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: "These are seriously bad people. EU free movement has a lot to answer for. "The end of it in just over 100 days won’t mean an end to foreign criminals trying to get here but it should at least make it a bit more difficult for them.”

There have been several foreign fugitives wanted in connection with overseas murders arrested here in recent weeks.

Romanian Liviu Cocris, 32, who was living in Pinner, west London, was arrested in August.

He was wanted in Greece for a murder allegedly carried out with accomplices and did not contest extradition.

Emil Kalla, 34, is wanted in Poland on suspicion of murder.

He was arrested by Nottinghamshire Police last month and has been remanded in custody in Wandsworth Prison ahead of an extradition hearing  

Earlier this year Croation Dragutin Hajdu, 70, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in connection with a war crime.

It is alleged that he stabbed a naked teenage boy Sinisa Rajkovic to death with a bayonet in 1991, while part of the Serbian paramilitary force that occupied Vukovar in the last part of the Croatian War of Independence.  

He is awaiting judgement on whether he should be extradited to Croatia.

Poland sought extradition of Grzegorz Sabramowicz, 44, (pictured above) over a gangland murder he was allegedly involved in.

He denies this and the request was discharged earlier this year for technical reasons and he remains living in the Sheffield area.

Czeslaw Kuliszewski, 39, (below right) returned to the UK after his wife Grażyna (below left) went missing in Poland in January 2019.

Her body was found in a river next month.

Kiliszewski denied any involvement, but a judge at Westminster said earlier this year he should be extradited to face questioning.

David Spencer, Director of Research at think tank the Centre for Crime Prevention, said: "It is appalling that allegedly violent and dangerous criminals are able to waltz into our country so easily and evade arrest for so long.

“Even when they are caught, they are able to extend their stay and use taxpayers money to fight extradition."