Flamur Beqiri: Swedish hitman guilty of doorstep murder

A Swedish hitman has been found guilty of murdering a man in front of his family in a tit-for-tat gang war.

Flamur Beqiri, 36, was shot in the back of the head on the doorstep of his home in Battersea, south-west London, in front of his wife and toddler on Christmas Eve 2019.

The gunman, 24-year-old kickboxer Anis Hemissi, was convicted following a two-week trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Fellow Swede Estevan Pino-Munizaga, 35, was found guilty of manslaughter.

Tobias Andersson, 32, and Bawer Karaer, 23, also from Sweden, were acquitted of both charges.

The court heard that Mr Beqiri was a kingpin in an international drugs gang and had been targeted as part of a feud with a rival organised crime group. He was shot a number of times in a killing that had been six months in the planning.

The killers came to London from Sweden before returning. A local team - Clifford Rollox, 31, from Islington, north London, and Dutch national Claude Isaac Castor, 31, from Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, who were hired to "tidy up" the aftermath, were found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Hemissi was caught on CCTV wearing a latex mask as he opened fire 10 times with a pistol, hitting Mr Beqiri with eight bullets from behind.

He had earlier disguised himself as a litter picker to carry out reconnaissance.

The jury was not told that he had previously been a suspect in the murder of a man shot dead in Malmo, but had never been charged.

Louise Attrill, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said the "international assassination", was "a shocking, cold-blooded and brutal murder of a man in front of his young family on Christmas Eve.

"The intention was clear - to kill."

She added that "multiple shots" had been "fired at close range", and the murder had been "deliberately carried out in a way that would cause maximum terror and trauma given the date, place and circumstances".

Mr Beqiri, who had joint Swedish and Albanian nationality, claimed to be in the music business but had been involved in the international drugs trade since 2007.

He was the brother of The Real Housewives Of Cheshire reality television participant, Misse Beqiri.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said she would sentence those found guilty over his killing on 18 February.