New details have emerged from the assassination attempt on 58-year-old Isuf Jaçaj, who was executed yesterday evening in the city of Saranda after his vehicle was blown up with TNT.
According to sources close to the investigation group, about 800 grams of TNT were used in the victim's vehicle, while the explosion is suspected to have been carried out remotely via remote control. The serious incident has shocked the coastal city and has put numerous police and investigative forces into motion.
Immediately after the explosion that resulted in Jaçaj's death, over 10 people were taken in for questioning regarding the circumstances of the assassination. In parallel, checks and verifications are continuing not only in Saranda, but also in Tirana, to identify the people involved in this event.
Due to the importance of the case, RENEA special forces and a group from the FNSH unit have landed in the city of Saranda, as well as in the peripheral areas of the Konispol Municipality. They are conducting detailed searches in suspicious homes, vehicles and premises, with the aim of finding evidence that could lead to the identification and arrest of the perpetrators of the incident.
Sources close to the investigation indicate that the main line of investigation is related to revenge, as it is suspected that the assassination was carried out in the wake of a chain of events that occurred in recent months in Saranda. According to the same sources, the victim's son, Klaus Jaçaj, 31, helped the perpetrator of the injury of two people on July 17 in Saranda.
Klaus Jaçaj surrendered to the Saranda Police Station on July 23, two days after a masked person blew up his BMW parked near his apartment — an event that is still not fully resolved. After his surrender, the Prosecution filed charges against him of “Supporting the perpetrator of the crime” and “Failure to report a crime,” while the court imposed the security measure of “Arrest in prison.”
The events that escalated into the latest attack date back to July 17 of this year, when in neighborhood no. 4 of Saranda, Ramadan Zoto (alias Ramadan Canaj), 43 years old, wounded Gëzim Hajdaraj, 33 years old, and Ernest Lama, 25 years old, both from Kamza, with a firearm.
According to the data, Hajdaraj and Lama are persons with criminal records in Saranda, after on January 8 of this year they had opposed the police forces on “Skënderbeu” street, but had later regained their freedom. After the July injury, the police found Hajdaraj a firearm and arrested him in the hospital.
Meanwhile, Ramadan Zoto, who is said to have been convicted in Greece of serious crimes, including murder, fled the scene of the crime and was captured armed on August 22 in the city of Korça. Two of the people who were with him at the time of the injury had previously surrendered to the police.
According to engineering experts, the 800-gram explosive was placed under the Toyota vehicle driven by Isuf Jaçaj and was activated by remote control. Investigative forces are facing difficulties in fully documenting the event, as there are no security cameras in the area where the explosion occurred in surrounding businesses or buildings.
The police and the prosecution continue investigations on several leads, while the revenge trail remains the most likely. While the city of Saranda is under increased security measures, special forces continue the operation to identify and arrest the perpetrators of the assassination that took the life of 58-year-old Isuf Jaçaj.
