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The Home Office, the British Interior Ministry, says it has discovered an administrative error with possible consequences in the extradition of an Albanian and three Britons, suspected of being involved in the murder of businessman Ardian Nikulaj in Shëngjin on April 19, 2023.
The error relates to documents signed by former minister Yvette Cooper, several months after the City of Westminster Magistrate Court in August 2024 accepted the Albanian state's request to extradite Albanian with a British passport Edmond Haxhia and British citizens Thomas Mithan, Harriet Bridgeman, and Harry Simpson.
Top Channel journalist Muhamed Veliu has seen the letter sent by the extradition directorate to the Home Office, the Albanian embassy in London, which details the discovered error and possible ways to correct it.
This correction is required to occur before the start of the appeal process at the Royal Court of Justice on October 7, so that lawyers do not exploit the error to automatically release the four wanted Albanian justice officials.
The Home Office in the letter indicates that Edmond Haxhia was initially charged by the Lezha Prosecutor's Office, based on the article of the Albanian criminal code "as murder for blood feud." While the three British men were charged with premeditated murder.
But these charges during the extradition trial were changed after a letter of guarantee from the Lezha Prosecutor's Office and signed by former Justice Minister Ulsi Manja stating that "Edmond Haxhia will not be charged with murder due to blood feud." While the three Britons were charged with using weapons without a permit.
The change in charges caused the extradition court to say "YES" to the Albanian state's request, and the decision went to Secretary of State Yvette Cooper for signature.
It was discovered that all four documents signed by her were formulated incorrectly, with old charges based on articles of blood feud and use of weapons.
In a letter to the Albanian embassy in London, the Home Office said: " The Secretary of State has no legal mechanism to correct this repeated error in all the documents allowing the extradition of all the persons in this process. At this time when all the wanted persons have applied for leave to appeal to the High Court of the United Kingdom, none of them has raised this specific issue individually or collectively to challenge the order. The likely scenario is that this error could create the possibility that for each person, it would lead to their release from the extradition process.
Faced with the implementation of this scenario by lawyers, the Home Office also proposes to the Albanian state how such a development with devastating consequences for their extradition can be avoided in the High Court.
"We have explored this issue and have taken advice from our legal advisers at the Home Office, in order to strengthen the extradition orders for each person. We would like to invite the Albanian authorities to consider issuing a further guarantee to the government in the UK, that the wanted persons will not face charges of blood feud as you confirmed in your correspondence dated 4 September 2023.
The Secretary of State will send this guarantee to the Supreme Court as part of the current appeal process. Please complete this request by September 10, 2025.”
Sources from the Ministry of Justice in Tirana told Top Channel that this request from the British side was fulfilled within the required deadline.
In London on October 7th and 8th, a judge at the Royal Court of Justice will hear the parties in the case and then decide whether or not a full appeal should be allowed against the decision given in August 2024 when extradition was granted./ TCH
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