An Albanian criminal should not return to his country to face justice because the assassins who previously tried to kill him will return to “finish the job,” a court was told.
Irfan Azizi told the extradition hearing that he narrowly escaped death when he was shot "around 30 times" during an assassination attempt in 2020, which prompted him to flee to Britain.
The 36-year-old said that the criminal group that tried to kill him "also carried out contract killings for judges and politicians" and that he will seek revenge if he returns to Albania.
The repeat offender is now seeking asylum in the United Kingdom along with his wife, while previously both were housed in a taxpayer-funded asylum seeker hotel.
Yesterday, Westminster Magistrates' Court heard that Azizi is wanted in Albania to serve a one-year prison sentence, after being convicted in absentia for possession of a mobile phone while in custody for other criminal offences.
During an unusual exchange in the courtroom, Azizi admitted that he had paid the Albanian judge to have the case closed and suggested that this meant he was no longer a wanted person.
British court records show that Azizi and another Albanian were each sentenced to six months in prison at Swindon Crown Court in April 2025 for using forged German patents.
Azizi also has a long criminal history in Albania, including involvement in illegal gambling networks.
In February 2019 he was sentenced to two years in prison for theft, before in June receiving another sentence of two years and three months in prison for stealing a Mercedes-Benz B-Class.
But just five months later he was free and on the street again.
The assassination attempt on him occurred on November 29, 2020. He described seeing a vehicle stop in front of a gas station, while a gunman got out of the car with a Kalashnikov.
"They started shooting at me, about 30 bullets," he told the court in Westminster.
"A bullet hit my hand and it broke into 13 pieces."
The organizer of the assassination has been widely reported in Albanian media as Talo Çela, a former close friend of Aziz and currently one of the most wanted persons in Albania.
Çela is suspected of having links to the Çopja criminal gang, a major cocaine supplier in London.
Azizi, the son of a farmer, said he left Albania by bus five weeks after the assassination and arrived in Britain a few days later.
He initially stayed with friends and a cousin, before moving to Sheffield in September 2021, where his wife later joined him.
Azizi claimed that in Albania he had been a "wealthy businessman", with three gas stations, as well as car washes and a coffee bar.
But after his wife joined him in the UK, the couple sought asylum on the grounds that they feared persecution in their home country and were placed in a taxpayer-funded asylum seeker hotel in Wiltshire.
They then moved into the flat they currently live in in Taunton along with their four children, who receive specialist support from the local council.
Aziz told the court during the extradition hearing that he had paid to have the phone charges dropped, but claimed he had done nothing wrong.
He told the judge:
"This is the method: pay money to close the case. I didn't cheat, I corrupted. If there is a prison sentence and if you want it eliminated, pay."
Azizi insisted that he will cooperate with the investigation into the assassination attempt against him and that he will return to Albania to testify, but only if the main suspect is found and charged.
He said he had already given a full statement to Albanian prosecutors.
During cross-examination, Mr Ball suggested that Aziz was exaggerating the power of the criminal group that had tried to kill him. He stressed that during his five years in Britain there had been no threat to him.
He added that his wife and four children were not threatened while they lived in Albania before joining him in Britain in September 2021.
“If you think this group is so powerful, why do you think you haven’t been threatened since then?” Mr. Ball asked.
"You say they have the power to kill people internationally, yet there is no evidence that they have threatened you."
Aziz replied:
"These people have committed murders for the prime minister on his orders and also for the interior minister. I have proof."
They don't warn you when they're going to kill you, they just come for you. The first time they came to shoot me they didn't warn me or threaten me.
I could go and testify too, but I'm afraid for my family and my wife.
"If I go to Albania they will kill me and, to prevent this from happening, I will have to kill them and I don't want to commit any crime while defending myself."
The court heard that extradition would have a devastating impact on Aziz's wife, but Mr Ball argued that they still face deportation if their asylum claim is rejected.
