Gunman ‘wearing latex prosthetic mask killed man in front of wife and toddler’, court hears
A gunman who disguised himself with a prosthetic face mask made out of latex was captured on CCTV shooting a man dead in front of his wife and toddler, a court has heard.
Anis Hemissi, a 24-year-old Swedish national, is accused of murdering Flamur Beqiri, who also goes by the name Alex, outside his home on Christmas Eve in 2019.
The shooting in Battersea, south-west London, is believed to have been part of escalating violence between two rival Swedish criminal gangs.
The 36-year-old victim was hit by eight bullets out of the 10 that were fired while his terrified wife Debora Krasniqi shielded their two-year-old son, Southwark Crown Court heard on Thursday.
The jury was shown footage and audio from a security camera that was mounted on the couple’s house.
Moments before the attack, the couple can be seen approaching his front gate while they both held hands with their son.
The gunman, who had allegedly waited around for around two hours, comes from behind them and the flash of the semi-automatic handgun can be seen as he opens fire.
Mr Beqiri falls forward to the floor while Ms Krasniqi can be heard screaming as she takes the boy away. She then returns to her husband and picks up the boy in her arms after the gunman runs off.
Hemissi allegedly fled on foot before cycling along the Thames path to a nearby flat.
Earlier footage two days before the killing allegedly captured the Swedish-Tunisian suspect carrying out reconnaissance of the couple’s neighbourhood, the court heard.
The clip shows a man wearing high-vis work clothes, a prosthetic face mask and sunglasses while holding a litter-picker and a bin bag.
Local resident Jeremy Lyons had approached the man after getting suspicious as to why he was in the area for more than four hours wearing a mask that showed no facial expressions.
Footage from Mr Beqiri’s camera captured the moment Mr Lyons asked: “Excuse me, who do you work for? Who do you work for?”
The other man walks off as he is told: “Get away from this estate please.”
A clip from the day of the shooting shows a man, alleged to be Hemissi, dressed in dark clothing, with a scarf tightly wrapped around his neck, a knitted hat pulled over the ears, sunglasses, and a different latex mask.
Metropolitan Police CCTV officer Detective Constable Jonathan Moore said: “My impression from looking at this clip and close-ups of the litter picking clip is this individual is wearing a mask, which is why he has the scarf done up tight, the hat pulled down and sunglasses.
“The mask is always expressionless, and the mouth doesn’t move.
“You can see it is two separate masks from the definition of the nose. It is two different masks in play here.”
Mr Beqiri, a Swedish-Albanian national who is the brother of Real Housewives of Cheshire star Missé Beqiri, was allegedly targeted because of his links to a Swedish organised crime network as part of escalating violence with a rival group.
Just four months before his death, his friend Naief Adawi’s partner Karolin Hakim, 31, was shot and killed in Malmo by gunmen as the couple left their flat with their newborn baby, the court has heard.
Hemissi, who flew into London on 20 December and left the country for Copenhagen, Denmark, in the early hours of Christmas Day, was allegedly part of a team of four killers from Sweden.
They are alleged to have planned Mr Beqiri’s killing for around six months, hiring locals to clean up once they had returned to Sweden.
Hemissi denies murder and possession of a self-loading pistol.
Swedish nationals Estevan Pino-Munizaga, 35, Tobias Fredrik Andersson, 32, and Bawer Karaer, 23, who are alleged to have been sent to help Hemissi, also deny murder.
UK national Clifford Rollox, 31, of Islington, north London, and Dutch national Claude Isaac Castor, 21, from Sint Maarten in the Caribbean but resident in the UK, deny perverting the course of justice.
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