An Albanian asylum seeker who was granted asylum in Britain by using a fake identity has been found guilty of murdering a retired couple in a suspected robbery that went wrong.
Ali Qazimaj, who is aged 43 or 44, killed grandparents Peter Stuart, 75, and his wife Sylvia, 69, after being told that they were millionaires.
He stabbed Mr Stuart, a retired factory worker, nine times before wrapping his body in a tarpaulin and dumping him in a ditch next to his cottage in Suffolk, eastern England.
The body of Mrs Stuart, a retired insurance clerk, has never been found. She is missing presumed dead but police did discover some of her hairs in Qazimaj’s car.
The couple had been married for 48 years before falling victim to the terrible crime last year.
During the month-long trial at Ipswich Crown Court it came to light that Qazimaj was a carer to the father-in-law of the Stuarts’ daughter, Christy Paxman.
The court heard Qazimaj had significant gambling debts and, under the impression that the Stuarts were wealthy, killed them in an attempt to clear his losses.
It also emerged that his real name is Vital Dapi. He was granted asylum in the UK by claiming to come from Yugoslavia rather than Albania. He sneaked into Britain in a fuel truck 1999 and told the authorities he was fleeing the war in Kosovo, pretending his family had been victims of ethnic cleansing.
A jury took three hours to find him guilty of both murders. Judge Jeremy Stuart-Smith warned Qazimaj he faced a life prison sentence. He will be sentenced later.
