Basel Criminal Court to hear the case of a 53-year-old man, charged with double murder and attempted murder in a drug-related conflict, starting today.
KEYSTONE/Valentin Flauraud
A 53-year-old man with several international convictions will have to answer to the Basel Criminal Court from Monday for a double murder committed with an accomplice and an attempted murder.
The public prosecutor’s office assumes that the crime was committed in relation to drug activity.
On the evening of March 9, 2017, two men with drawn firearms entered Café 56 on Basel’s Erlenmattstrasse – a popular meeting place for people from Albania, according to the indictment from the public prosecutor’s office. Within a short space of time, five shots were fired at three of those present in the café.
Two of the men, aged 28 and 40, died, while a third, aged 24 at the time, survived with serious injuries. They also had a criminal past in the drug scene.
After 20 seconds, the two men, both Albanians with multiple convictions for drug offences, fled. One of the perpetrators surrendered to a police patrol in Basel city centre the day after the crime, the other fled abroad.
The 53-year-old accused was arrested in Holland in 2018 and sentenced to 44 months’ imprisonment for cocaine trafficking before being transferred to Basel, where he is now facing charges of active murder or complicity.
It is apparently not clear which of the two Albanians fired the shots. The murder weapons could not be found. However, according to the indictment, the public prosecutor’s office assumes that it was the defendant now on trial. Either way, the two parties to the crime acted “with complicity and direct intent” and with the intention of settling accounts.
The second person involved in the crime, who is now 48 years old, was sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 years’ deportation in a separate trial in Basel in 2018 for multiple murder, attempted murder and endangering life. He unsuccessfully appealed this sentence to the Federal Supreme Court.
The public prosecutor’s office accuses the accused, together with his accomplice, of having deliberately and “unscrupulously” carried out an actual execution, showing “an extreme and appalling disregard for human life”. Further life-threatening injuries were accepted in the café.
The trial before the Basel Criminal Court is scheduled to last four days.
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