Over 10 years in prison and 42 thousand euros in fine for seven accused of smuggling

The Pristina Foundation Court has convicted the seven accused of smuggling migrants, condemning them together to 10 years and six months in prison and 42 thousand euros in fines, while one was acquitted.

The indictment against them was proclaimed on Wednesday by the judge, Kujtim Krasniqi, reports “The Justice Act”.

Indictee Florim Krasniqi was sentenced to 3 years in prison and 20 thousand euros in fines, while Taulant Bilalli was sentenced to 1 year and six months in prison and 5 thousand fines.

For the criminal work of smuggling migrants, he was sentenced to two years in prison and 10 thousand euros in fines, and accused Haki Maloku.

Also for the same deed, he was sentenced to 1 year in prison and 5 thousand euros in fines to accused Bekim Hasani.

Meanwhile, accused Sadat Murati as well as Koplinger were sentenced to 1 year in prison each except for the false criminal act of documenting, while accused Koplinger was even sentenced to 2 thousand euros in fines for non-licensive weapons.

And accused Florent Krasniqi was acquitted of the prosecution after it had not been proven to have committed the same criminal work for which he was charged.

Under the trial, if the accused cannot pay the penalty by fine, then the same could be replaced in prison sentences by an estimated 20 euros for a day in prison.

The accused were also charged separately to pay the expenses of the criminal procedure, so that each amount of 200 euros in the name of the judiciary, as well as 100 euros, on behalf of compensation for crime victims.

In the end, according to the indictment, Judge Krasniqi said the parties have the right to a complaint against the same in the 30-day term after accepting the written form of judgment.

According to the indictment filed by the Special Prosecutor of the Republic of Kosovo on 27 October 2021, Florim Krasniqi, Florent Krasniqi, Taulant Bilalli, Sadat Murati, Samed Murati, Haki Maloku, Bekim Hsani and Izet Koplinger from March 2020 to March 24th 2021, acting as an organised criminal group, have carried out the criminal smuggling work with migrants.

The charge says the group led by Florim Krasniqi, who has created the laboratory for the production of forged documents, in separate roles as members of the criminal group through defendants Florent Krasniqi, Hakki Maloku, Izet Koplinger, Sadat Murati, have provided persons who were aiming to migrate to different European countries.