A music executive linked to a criminal caught in a Dubai raid was "executed" at his £1.5 million home in London by a hitman, a court has heard.
Flamur Beqiri, 36, who was once a wanted crime lord in Sweden, died from multiple gunshot wounds after being attacked at his home in London’s Battersea district on Christmas Eve last year.
Swedish citizen Anis Fouad Hemissi, 22, appeared at the Old Bailey in London on Wednesday charged with murder and possessing a firearm.
He was extradited from Denmark to the UK on Monday after being arrested at Copenhagen Airport on January 20 under a European arrest warrant.
Prosecutor Catherine Farrelly told the court Mr Hemissi was a hitman and had left the country within hours of the murder.
"The defendant will face two charges in relation to the events of December 24 last year," she said.
"The prosecution case is that he flew into the UK four days before and the sole purpose of his trip was to essentially execute the deceased. It was an organised hit and within hours of it taking place at 9pm he then flew out of the country. He flew to Copenhagen and an arrest warrant was issued."
Mr Hemissi, from Malmo, Sweden, appeared in court via video link from Wormwood Scrubs prison in London.
He confirmed his name at the hearing and asked the court to provide a Swedish interpreter in the future.
His barrister, David Harounoff, told the court his client will deny the charges and will be applying for the case to be dismissed.
"This is going to be a contested matter," he added.
Judge Angela Rafferty QC has set a plea hearing date of August 27 and has remanded Mr Hemissi, a kickboxer, in custody.
The murder victim Beqiri, an Albanian who grew up in Malmo, had links to Spain's Costa del Sol drugs gangs and is understood to have fled to the UK five years ago after receiving death threats.
He was associated with a Swedish drugs gang, called Los Suecos, ‘the Swedes’, who operate on the Costa del Sol and were allegedly led by Amir Faten Mekky, who was arrested in a raid in Dubai last week.
Mr Mekky was on Europe’s most wanted list as being an alleged gangland leader and the “financier” of alleged Dutch drugs lord, Radwan Al Taghi, who was arrested in Dubai last December and is in custody awaiting trial for multiple murders.
Beqiri was with his wife and young son at the time of his killing.
At the time of Beqiri’s death, British detectives revealed they were working with Swedish authorities over the possibility he had been involved in a drugs war with North African criminals.
Beqiri had been running a record company in London called 2020rec.
He was once one of Sweden’s most wanted men over a €2m international drugs trafficking case and knew several victims of recent gangland murders.
He had been associated with Mr Mekky, who had been on the run since evading capture in Spain in 2018.
Mr Mekky was apprehended in Dubai last week in a joint international operation and is wanted for murders in the Spanish towns of San Pedro Alcántara and Estepona in 2018.
Spanish authorities are seeking his extradition.
The Los Suecos gang is suspected of ordering kidnappings, shootings and arsons in the Costa del Sol.
Last December, Mr Mekky's associate Al Taghi was arrested following an international manhunt when Dubai Police joined forces with Dutch officials and discovered him hiding out in a luxury villa in the resort region.
Within three days of his arrest, authorities in Dubai deported him to the Netherlands to face multiple murder charges.
A long-running turf war involving Dutch-Moroccans has seen the loss of many innocent lives across Europe.
Al Taghi, who is a dual Dutch and Moroccan citizen, has been cited in court papers as being behind some of the deaths.
It is alleged he used a biker gang, known as the Angels of Death, to carry out executions for both drug feuds and revenge attacks.
Those allegedly killed on his orders were targeted using grenades, guns and explosives.
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Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
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Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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