A FUGITIVE accused of murder before fleeing to Britain and posing as a refugee has been arrested after 27 years on the run.
Sabri Sopoti, 60, faces extradition to serve a 24-year jail sentence for shooting a man dead with a machine gun in Albania in 1999.
Prosecutors allege Sopoti got asylum here by pretending to be Kosovo war Zenel Bytyqi.
At Westminster magistrates’ court, he was remanded in custody before a full extradition hearing in December.
Prosecutors say someone rang him in 1999 and told him to “sort out that garbage playing with you and your family”.
His wife later told investigators he became visibly agitated after the call and left home carrying both a machine gun and a pistol.
Sopoti took a Scorpion sub-machine gun and pistol to kill the man in a café.
He vanished and was convicted in his absence.
Albanian authorities allege he fled to Britain using a different identity, claiming to be a refugee from
They say he was allowed to remain in the UK and lived under the assumed identity for almost three decades before being traced.
His extradition hearing is due to take place in December.
Sopoti was caught in an operation involving Manchester.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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