The trial of 9 people accused of the murder of 38-year-old Ardit Spahiu began today at the Brussels Court of Serious Crimes.
According to local media, the main characters in the file are Franc Gergely (also known as Franc Çopja) and Mikael Qosja, who are suspected of being part of an Albanian mafia clan, often mentioned in investigations for importing large quantities of cocaine into Europe.
On November 27, 2020, Ardit Spahiu was killed in an ambush on Condor Street, in the Molenbeek-Saint-Jean area. At around 5:45 p.m., a masked man armed with a silenced machine gun, according to witnesses, opened fire on him. 17 shell casings were found at the scene and nine bullets hit Spahiu in the body.
Investigations show that the victim was also involved in drug trafficking, through another Albanian clan, the Alibey clan, a rival of Franc Gergely's group. This conflict is suspected to have started years ago and had led to several assassinations ordered in Albania. This information was given to investigators by the victim's family members.
Belgian media write that the conflicts are related to the fight for control of the drug market, the theft of a 50-kilogram load of cocaine, financial debts or simply personal clashes. The investigation remained blocked for a while, until the authorities managed to decrypt the Sky ECC network, the communication application widely used by international organized crime.
“It was like sitting at the criminals’ table,” said a senior federal police official at the time. The decryption of Sky ECC led to the crackdown on many criminal groups around the world and also revealed communications related to the organization of the murder of Ardit Spahiu. These messages included exchanges between Franc Gergely and other people involved in the case, three of whom are still at large.
Franc Gergely was arrested in September 2023 in the United Arab Emirates and extradited to Belgium in December.
