TIRANA, March. 8 – Albania’s Constructional Court has told a lower court to reevaluate the case of a former head of a criminal organization known as the “Gang of Lushnja.”
The court said it reached its decision based on procedural grounds, blaming errors and mistakes done in the stages of investigation and conviction of the notorious criminal who was charged on several counts of criminal activities, murders and heading a criminal organization.
Aldo Bare is serving life in prison and the Constitutional Court said it had not voided the conviction, but rather ordered the lower court to look at some of the elements that led to it.
After years on the run and being convicted in absentia, Bare was arrested in Turkey in 2006 and extradited to Albania in November 2009.
The First Instance Court of Serious Crimes sentenced Bare to life imprisonment but Bare’s attorneys appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeal. Judges decided to abrogate the ruling and send it back to the First Instance Court claiming that prosecutors and judges and conducted procedural violations.
The journey of the ruling continued to the Supreme Court which repelled the Appeals Court ruling.
In 2012, the Court of Appeal retained the life imprisonment ruling for Bare. His defense attorney appealed the verdict to the Constitutional Court, arguing that the High Court had violated Article 6 of the ECHR and Article 42 of the Constitution, alleging that Bare was denied the right of an unbiased and fair trial.
The criminal organization led by Bare, a former police officer, was founded in July 1997 and it committed several criminal acts and at least five premeditated murders. The activities of the Lushnja Gang continued until 2005, according to prosecutors.
