00:00:04
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
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NARRATOR: In June 2016, police in Luxembourg
00:00:12
swooped on a hostel for asylum seekers.
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The officers were executing an international search warrant
00:00:20
for a man who was wanted for the murder of a retired couple
00:00:23
in Suffolk, England.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: To say that Peter Stuart was killed
00:00:27
is an understatement.
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He was stabbed nine times, seven times in the back,
00:00:33
twice in the front.
00:00:35
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Sylvia's body has never been found,
00:00:38
and this suggests to me that the killer doesn't want Sylvia's
00:00:41
body to be found, because Sylvia's body will tell part
00:00:45
of the story about her murder.
00:00:48
NARRATOR: Investigators were certain they had tracked down
00:00:51
their man, former carer Ali Qazimaj who'd been on the run
00:00:56
for almost two weeks.
00:00:57
But the 43-year-old suspect insisted he
00:01:01
was someone entirely different.
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KARIM KHALIL QC: He claimed throughout the case
00:01:05
that his true identity and only identity
00:01:08
was that of Vital Dapi, and he had
00:01:10
nothing to do with either of the other names or identities.
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NARRATOR: Despite his protestations,
00:01:16
Qazimaj was extradited to Britain to face trial.
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It would be up to prosecutors to prove that he
00:01:23
was a cold-blooded murderer.
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ANTHONY CARROLL: Qazimaj was an evil, calculating killer who
00:01:28
lived in a fantasy world and was prepared to murder
00:01:31
people for his own gains.
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NARRATOR: Ali Qazimaj had been unveiled as one of the world's
00:01:37
most evil killers.
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[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
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In March 2017, 44-year-old Ali Qazimaj
00:02:07
was found guilty of the double murder
00:02:09
of Peter and Sylvia Stuart.
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The retired couple disappeared from their home
00:02:15
in Weybread Suffolk on the 3rd of June, 2016.
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Peter's body was discovered hours later, while Sylvia's
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remains have never been found.
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The murders shook the small community to the core.
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ZACH WARD: At the time, I was the senior reporter
00:02:34
at the Diss Express.
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Diss Express is a weekly newspaper covering
00:02:38
local stories, about 400 square miles
00:02:41
across Norfolk and Suffolk.
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And most the stories we covered were
00:02:45
very small fry, to be frank.
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You know, it was planning permission,
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it was really small things.
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Sticking up for local people basically.
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So something like this was quite shocking.
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NARRATOR: Fellow reporter Anthony Carroll also
00:02:57
covered the harrowing story.
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Obviously, as a journalist, you do get to cover
00:03:02
murders and major events.
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So I had covered a few.
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But to cover one in a village like this, a double murder,
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with all the strange circumstances around it,
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was a major story for me and one of the most compelling
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I've ever covered as a journalist
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in my 15 years of reporting.
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NARRATOR: Reading on with interest
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was barrister Karim Khalil QC, who
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would eventually go toe to toe with Ali
00:03:29
Qazimaj at Ipswich Crown Court.
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KARIM KHALIL QC: He's cold.
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Because of his behavior in the witness box,
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he demonstrated an ability to withstand really very close
00:03:40
questioning over a significant period of time,
00:03:44
with evidence presented to him, which
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to any independent observer, would
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be regarded as overwhelming.
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And yet he simply stood in the face of that
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and continued his denials in a calm manner.
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NARRATOR: This killer's story begins in southeastern Europe.
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Ali Qazimaj was born Vital Dapi in Elbasan, Albania in 1973.
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His upbringing is an enigma.
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ELIZABETH YARDLEY: We don't know very much about his background.
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We know that he came from a relatively traditional family.
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His dad worked as a plumber, and he had a sibling.
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But aside from that, it is a bit of a mystery.
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NARRATOR: It's believed that Vital Dapi served
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in the Albanian Special Forces.
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But around the age of 27, he arrived on the shores
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of Britain, claiming to be from Kosovo, in the then
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war-torn Balkan Peninsula.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: He was essentially an asylum seeker.
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And when he presented himself in this country formally,
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he changed from being Vital Dapi to Ali Qazimaj. He
00:04:57
became a different character.
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ELIZABETH YARDLEY: So here is somebody
00:05:02
who is quite comfortable with trying on different identities.
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He is an actor.
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He will fit into the parts that he's made up for himself.
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ANDY BAKER: He worked in a number of jobs, sometimes two
00:05:13
or three jobs at the same time.
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Part-time driver, general worker,
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and some other part-time work as well,
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fairly mundane blue-collar kind of jobs.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: He was partly Ali Qazimaj in Britain,
00:05:27
doing a variety of jobs, but he was regularly going
00:05:31
back to Albania as Vital Dapi to resume parts of his life there.
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He had, for example, a wife and a child in Albania.
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It was literally Walter Mitty, two lives.
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Now, what he did in his periods in Albania
00:05:49
remain something of a mystery.
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NARRATOR: By 2005, Qazimaj was working as a carer
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in the town of Grays in Essex.
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He'd become a British citizen, thanks largely to the woman
00:06:07
he was looking after, Helen Paxman.
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ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Helen was somebody
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who provided a reference for him on his citizenship application.
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She was somebody who bought him clothes.
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She bought him a car.
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Yes, she really did believe that this man genuinely
00:06:21
had affection for her.
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So this tells me that he's very good at performing emotions,
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even though he doesn't feel them.
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He knows exactly what people need to hear
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to get what he wants from them.
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NARRATOR: During his time as her carer,
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Qazimaj got to know Helen Paxman and her husband Sidney
00:06:40
very well.
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Helen, I'm sad to say, dies.
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But the relationship doesn't break down,
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because her husband Sidney has a problem, has a hip operation.
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He now needs a carer, and who better
00:06:56
than Ali, who has been looking after Helen
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for all those years?
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NARRATOR: But all was not as it seemed.
00:07:03
Qazimaj was arrested three times for various offenses
00:07:07
during his time in the UK.
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And he'd started talking to Sidney
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Paxman about his mysterious private life.
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KARIM KHALIL QC: He had told Mr. Paxman whilst taking him out
00:07:18
for walks, for example, and caring for him,
00:07:21
that he was a trained killer, or in Serbia, he had
00:07:24
carried out a contract killing.
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That was a rather curious conversation
00:07:28
to have for a man who had no such interest in these matters.
00:07:32
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: So he claims that he killed a man for money,
00:07:35
and he describes in detail what happened during this incident.
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And I think this tells us a lot about him,
00:07:43
in terms of how he wants to be seen by other people.
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He's somebody who builds relationships
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on other people's fear of him.
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He's not interested in mutuality or respect or understanding.
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Here is somebody who values violence,
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and that's something that's at the forefront.
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NARRATOR: Qazimaj had also developed an expensive gambling
00:08:06
habit, something for which he devised
00:08:09
an entirely new persona.
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GEOFFREY WANSELL: But now, yet again,
00:08:13
the man who has been two people becomes three people.
00:08:17
As far as the gambling is concerned,
00:08:19
he's called Marco Costa.
00:08:21
He's not called Vital Dapi.
00:08:23
He's not called Ali Qazimaj. He's called Marco Costa,
00:08:27
a man used to living a double life is
00:08:29
now leading a triple life.
00:08:31
But unfortunately, he isn't earning enough money
00:08:34
to support his increasingly elaborate and addicted gambling
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habit.
00:08:40
But nevertheless, on the surface,
00:08:42
to all intents and purposes, he's admirable character.
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I think at one point, he starts calling Sidney Paxman dad.
00:08:50
NARRATOR: Qazimaj's seemingly caring nature
00:08:53
helped him con the Paxman family out
00:08:56
of a significant amount of money,
00:08:58
which he used to fuel his gambling addiction.
00:09:02
So he's appearing to be somebody who is
00:09:04
quite selfless and empathetic.
00:09:06
He's engaged in this caring occupation.
00:09:09
And this is the view that people will have of him.
00:09:12
But when you look behind the scenes, what was actually going
00:09:14
on during the time he was working for the Paxman's, he
00:09:17
actually took 10,000 pounds from them during this period.
00:09:21
So this is a man who uses charm, who uses manipulation, who sets
00:09:26
up relationships with people that they feel are genuine,
00:09:29
but they're anything but.
00:09:31
NARRATOR: By the summer of 2016, Qazimaj
00:09:35
was still caring for Sidney Paxman in Grays Essex.
00:09:42
But in June, 75 miles away in the Suffolk village
00:09:46
of Weybread, journalists were just
00:09:48
learning about the disappearance of a local couple.
00:09:52
ZACH WARD: So it was on the Friday
00:09:53
where we received a missing persons appeal from Suffolk
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Police, and we would get missing persons appeal quite regularly.
00:10:01
But I think, obviously, where there was two people missing
00:10:03
in this case, meant it was probably a little bit
00:10:04
out of the ordinary typically.
00:10:07
ANTHONY CARROLL: I was in the office somewhere on a Friday,
00:10:09
just covering the patch, and you get a police statement sent out
00:10:12
saying I'm looking for a missing couple
00:10:14
in the Village of Weybread.
00:10:15
So you sometimes think, oh, I wonder what that's about.
00:10:19
Soon, it became obvious that this was a more serious
00:10:21
case of a missing people case with the amount
00:10:22
of police presence.
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By the afternoon, we were getting the steer,
00:10:26
you know, this might be quite a major story.
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NARRATOR: Peter and Sylvia Stuart
00:10:31
had retired to Weybread 10 years previously.
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By the 3rd of June, 2016, they hadn't been seen for five days.
00:10:42
GEOFFREY WANSELL: They were last seen at just about a quarter
00:10:45
past 10 in the morning of the 29th of May, 2016,
00:10:49
in a farm shop in Norfolk.
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It was the last official sighting of them.
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KARIM KHALIL QC: They appeared entirely normal.
00:10:58
There was nothing untoward about their behavior
00:11:01
to alert anybody that there potentially was anything wrong.
00:11:04
And then it was the following Tuesday
00:11:07
that they failed to attend their line dancing class.
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And that's when the alarm was first raised.
00:11:12
NARRATOR: The Stuart's daughter, Christy, became immediately
00:11:16
concerned about her parents.
00:11:19
She contacted a friend, a neighbor, who knew the Stuarts.
00:11:23
And indeed said, would you mind just
00:11:25
going and checking on mom and dad.
00:11:27
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And when this friend arrived at the house,
00:11:29
it was almost as if they'd vanished into thin air.
00:11:32
There was a computer with an eBay page open.
00:11:35
The cat litter tray hadn't been changed for a while.
00:11:38
There was only a tiny amount of water in the cat's bowl.
00:11:41
It was as if they just got up and walked out.
00:11:45
NARRATOR: The police were called to investigate.
00:11:48
The small village of Weybread had just
00:11:51
one question on their lips--
00:11:53
what had happened to Peter and Sylvia Stuart?
00:11:56
Concerns for the couple were growing.
00:12:00
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:12:06
ANDY BAKER: So when the police went to the house
00:12:08
on the 3rd of June, it was easy to get in.
00:12:10
There was a key there.
00:12:11
But there was no sign of disturbance, no blood present.
00:12:15
They're just missing, vanished.
00:12:17
KARIM KHALIL QC: They found really
00:12:18
nothing out of place at all.
00:12:21
There was no indication of forced
00:12:22
entry or anything of that sort.
00:12:25
It appeared forensically very clean.
00:12:27
What they did find there was what was a suggestion
00:12:30
of a partially finished meal.
00:12:33
And then they examined the computer
00:12:35
that was on one of the tables.
00:12:37
And it appeared that Sylvia had been
00:12:39
shopping on eBay for, I think, some shoes for her husband.
00:12:43
But this hadn't been completed.
00:12:45
So the last use of that laptop was at about 2:45
00:12:48
in the afternoon.
00:12:50
And after that, there was no trace
00:12:51
of either of the existence of Peter or Sylvia.
00:12:54
ANDY BAKER: They would have searched thoroughly the house,
00:12:57
not just for Peter and Sylvia's presence,
00:12:59
but anything that may give them a clue where they are.
00:13:03
If they had mobile phones, did they leave them behind?
00:13:05
Was there money there?
00:13:06
Had their car gone?
00:13:07
Were the keys there?
00:13:08
There's many opportunities that will take you through an avenue
00:13:12
of the investigation.
00:13:13
And they would have looked at every single element
00:13:16
of opportunity to try and find Peter and Sylvia.
00:13:19
That wasn't there.
00:13:23
NARRATOR: Local journalist, Anthony Carroll,
00:13:25
arrived in the village to find out more
00:13:28
about the developing story.
00:13:30
ANTHONY CARROLL: I remember getting into Weybread.
00:13:32
It was so remote.
00:13:33
It was off the beaten track, away from the main village.
00:13:35
So you drive down this road for a while,
00:13:37
then you come across a few houses.
00:13:39
And then just sort of heavy police presence.
00:13:42
Then you realize, oh, something major is happening here.
00:13:44
It's all cordoned off.
00:13:46
Always a bit of shock seeing what's
00:13:47
happened in middle of this rural location
00:13:49
in the middle of nowhere?
00:13:50
You know, just a strange mystery going on.
00:13:52
Want to try and get to the bottom of it.
00:13:55
NARRATOR: Anthony began to interview the worried locals.
00:13:59
ANTHONY CARROLL: So we went out there, got a feel of the place,
00:14:01
spoke to neighbors.
00:14:03
We were writing the story up saying,
00:14:04
police search for missing couple.
00:14:07
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Later that day,
00:14:08
in the early evening of Friday the 3rd of June, Peter Stuart's
00:14:12
body is discovered in a flooded ditch
00:14:16
in grounds behind their garden.
00:14:19
There's no sign whatever of his wife, Sylvia.
00:14:26
ANTHONY CARROLL: So by the end of Friday,
00:14:27
there was a murder investigation we were reporting on.
00:14:30
I think the initial reaction in the local area was shock.
00:14:34
This sort of thing never happens in this rural part
00:14:37
of the world.
00:14:38
And we're not used to having national TV
00:14:40
stations and the national media descend
00:14:42
on a tiny little village.
00:14:44
I had been at the newspaper by that point for the best
00:14:47
part of three years.
00:14:47
And we hadn't covered anything like this
00:14:49
before, because without sounding too cliche,
00:14:51
nothing like this ever did happen in Suffolk.
00:14:57
NARRATOR: It's believed that 75-year-old Peter Stuart had
00:15:01
been murdered whilst preparing lunch on the 30th of May,
00:15:05
four days before the discovery of his body.
00:15:09
Peter's body was found about 50
00:15:10
foot from the couple's house.
00:15:12
He'd been repeatedly stabbed to death.
00:15:14
He'd been stabbed nine times.
00:15:16
Eight of those stab wounds would have proved fatal, as shown
00:15:20
by the post-mortem examination.
00:15:22
GEOFFREY WANSELL: And as the pathologist was to say later,
00:15:25
huge force was used.
00:15:28
He wasn't simply killed.
00:15:29
He was butchered.
00:15:30
ZACH WARD: Nothing can actually really
00:15:32
prepare you for having to report on something like this.
00:15:34
And you know, we're sort of several degrees away from it.
00:15:37
It's nothing compared to what the actual family are going
00:15:39
through, but it was shocking.
00:15:42
NARRATOR: Peter's body had been found lying in the woodland
00:15:45
just behind the couple's home.
00:15:48
The killer made little effort to hide the crime.
00:15:51
He had been wrapped in a tarpaulin.
00:15:54
And he'd been deposited, left abandoned, dumped in a ditch.
00:16:00
ZACH WARD: I believe the officer who
00:16:01
found Mr. Stuart had said that he could see a hand
00:16:04
from under the tarpaulin.
00:16:05
So it hadn't been done particularly well.
00:16:09
So this method of disposal is quite haphazard.
00:16:13
This is a killer who just wants the body out of the way.
00:16:16
Obviously, it's going to be discovered very quickly.
00:16:20
So this is incredibly revealing to me about the killer,
00:16:23
because this shows me that at this point in time,
00:16:26
he's got more important things to worry about.
00:16:28
He's preoccupied with something else.
00:16:34
NARRATOR: Peter's 69-year-old wife, Sylvia,
00:16:37
was nowhere to be found.
00:16:39
Suffolk Police immediately upped the urgency
00:16:43
in the hunt for her and her husband's killer.
00:16:46
ANDY BAKER: They knew they had a murder inquiry straightaway.
00:16:48
It's not only person, but then they must conduct an open mind
00:16:53
as to what happened to Sylvia.
00:16:54
Has she been murdered?
00:16:55
Is she harmed?
00:16:56
Is she being held against her will or she willingly
00:16:59
participating with someone who's committed the murder or not?
00:17:02
ANTHONY CARROLL: The circumstances around this case
00:17:04
were, of course, very mysterious and strange
00:17:06
and almost like a crime novel.
00:17:08
There was a rural location, very remote, a couple living
00:17:12
on their own, seemed very quiet and kept
00:17:14
themselves to themselves.
00:17:16
That's the big mystery, of course, to the whole case.
00:17:18
What happened to her?
00:17:19
Was she still alive?
00:17:21
Obviously, you foster with the community with what's happened
00:17:24
and you want to make sure you write the story correctly.
00:17:28
So get the facts right.
00:17:30
And obviously, you start thinking,
00:17:31
I wonder what's happened to his wife.
00:17:32
You know, where's Sylvia?
00:17:37
NARRATOR: The news of a murder and a missing person spread
00:17:41
fear amongst the small village of Weybread,
00:17:44
where the Stuarts were known to be a popular couple.
00:17:47
ANTHONY CARROLL: Obviously, in the local community,
00:17:49
there was a sense of concern, fear, and worry.
00:17:51
People worried what had happened to the Stuarts.
00:17:54
People were worried, was the killer
00:17:55
still in their community?
00:17:57
Was it safe to go out?
00:17:59
I think most people were worried about when
00:18:01
it was Sylvia hadn't been seen, what had happened to her.
00:18:03
So people were very concerned that she'd
00:18:05
be found safe and well.
00:18:06
Obviously, talking to people in the village,
00:18:09
it was just a mixture of concern and worry
00:18:11
about what had happened in their tranquil community.
00:18:14
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Well, there can be no doubt
00:18:16
that the inhabitants of Weybread in Suffolk
00:18:18
would have been horrified at the discovery of a local resident
00:18:21
who goes line dancing with his wife literally every week
00:18:25
and is popular in the local community
00:18:27
would have horrified the residents.
00:18:30
ANDY BAKER: Other people would have been in fear, in fear what
00:18:33
brings murder to our doorstep.
00:18:34
What brings murder to these people
00:18:36
have lived a very safe, lawful life
00:18:40
and they are robbed of life in this way?
00:18:47
NARRATOR: The first suspects on the investigators' radar
00:18:51
were the Stuart's other family members.
00:18:54
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Very often, when there is a murder,
00:18:56
it will be somebody that's close to us.
00:18:58
It will be somebody in our family.
00:18:59
It will be one of our friends.
00:19:01
So the police have to rule all of those people
00:19:03
out before they can rule out other people in.
00:19:07
NARRATOR: Less than 48 hours after the discovery of Peter's
00:19:11
body, detectives over 100 miles away from Weybread
00:19:15
brought a man in for questioning.
00:19:17
All we were told was a 61-year-old from
00:19:20
Leicester had been arrested.
00:19:21
And at the time, we didn't do, to be honest,
00:19:24
a huge amount of digging because it
00:19:26
was an incredibly fast-moving investigation, but also
00:19:28
sensitivity is needed.
00:19:29
And at the time, the last thing we wanted to do
00:19:32
was try to impede or get the wrong bit of information
00:19:34
out there.
00:19:35
But within a day or so, the local media around the area
00:19:39
had found out that it was actually
00:19:40
the son-in-law of the Stuarts.
00:19:42
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Steve Paxman explains that he's always
00:19:46
had a complicated relationship with Peter, his father-in-law,
00:19:49
but it's always been amicable.
00:19:51
There's never been any disagreement.
00:19:53
But Steve also points out that someone who knew him
00:19:57
was also his father's carer.
00:20:00
The police talk to his father, Sidney,
00:20:03
who gives them for the first time
00:20:05
the name of Ali Qazimaj as his carer and someone
00:20:09
who's talked to him about the terrible things
00:20:12
he's done in the past.
00:20:14
He's bragged about murdering people.
00:20:18
NARRATOR: Steve Paxman was immediately
00:20:20
released from custody.
00:20:21
The police were now on the hunt for a man
00:20:24
who lived in Tilbury, Essex, 43-year-old carer Ali Qazimaj.
00:20:32
ZACH WARD: When we first heard the name Ali Qazimaj,
00:20:34
we didn't really know too much about him.
00:20:37
We knew that he was from Kosovo.
00:20:39
That was information we received from the police.
00:20:42
And apart from that, we didn't know too much, apart
00:20:44
from he was the main suspect.
00:20:46
ANTHONY CARROLL: I think the police looking
00:20:47
into his background soon had very
00:20:49
strong concerns that he was linked to his disappearance.
00:20:52
And so his name and image began to get circulated.
00:20:55
Obviously, we didn't know much about him at all.
00:20:58
We knew he had a link to Tilbury in Essex
00:21:00
and that he had a connection to the Stuart family.
00:21:03
NARRATOR: Qazimaj had been working
00:21:05
as a carer for Peter Stuart's son-in-law's
00:21:08
father, Sidney Paxman, for the previous decade.
00:21:12
Sidney told detectives that during a conversation
00:21:15
with his carer on the 3rd of June,
00:21:18
Qazimaj had told him that he'd done something bad.
00:21:22
Ali Qazimaj was now the prime suspect in Peter's murder.
00:21:27
The Stuarts and the Paxman's were
00:21:29
in-laws by marriage through the respective children.
00:21:32
And it was Sidney Paxman's suspicions
00:21:35
of what Qazimaj had said to him that led him to say,
00:21:39
it's not my son.
00:21:40
You need to look at this chap, which is what they did.
00:21:43
Say there is a link between Qazimaj and the victim,
00:21:46
but I think Qazimaj thought that the police would
00:21:49
never put this all together.
00:21:51
He thought he was far too clever.
00:21:54
NARRATOR: Investigators were certain they
00:21:56
had identified Peter's killer.
00:21:59
Now, they just needed to track him down,
00:22:02
but Ali Qazimaj, the carer turned killer,
00:22:06
was nowhere to be seen.
00:22:12
KARIM KHALIL QC: They found his workplace,
00:22:14
and it became apparent that Ali Qazimaj had
00:22:16
left his workplace abruptly.
00:22:19
They spoke to many of his colleagues,
00:22:21
who detailed curious conversations with him,
00:22:24
in which he had spoken of planning a robbery
00:22:27
and that sort of thing.
00:22:29
They examined the computer to which he had access at work.
00:22:33
And it was discovered that that computer had been used
00:22:36
to search for the home address of the Stuart family
00:22:40
on one of the many evaluation sites that are out there.
00:22:45
And so it seemed as if he had an unusual and unexplained
00:22:48
interest in the home of Peter and Sylvia Stuart.
00:22:52
He was definitely planning something.
00:22:54
He wanted to make sure that he had this down to a T.
00:22:58
It's quite likely, I think as well,
00:23:00
that he stalked this couple, because he wanted
00:23:03
to leave nothing to chance.
00:23:06
NARRATOR: Detectives soon uncovered further evidence
00:23:09
to link Qazimaj to the Stuarts.
00:23:11
KARIM KHALIL QC: And so the inquiries continued, of course.
00:23:14
His mobile phone was tracked and eventually through cell site
00:23:18
analysis, it was discovered, along with his motor car,
00:23:22
a Citroen vehicle, that he had made some six trips, each
00:23:27
of which was unexplained, from the area
00:23:29
or locality of his home or work address in London,
00:23:33
up to Weybread.
00:23:35
And there was no known reason why he would have an interest
00:23:38
in going there, other than as some sort
00:23:41
of reconnaissance trips.
00:23:43
And I think six previous trips and then
00:23:46
the final trip, of course, was logged
00:23:48
by similar forensic analysis on the day of the killings itself.
00:23:55
NARRATOR: 69-year-old Sylvia Stuart remained missing.
00:23:59
She had last been seen with her husband
00:24:02
on a local farm shop CCTV on the 29th of May.
00:24:07
But suspicious activity surrounding Sylvia's bank
00:24:10
account after she'd vanished led investigators
00:24:14
to fear the worst.
00:24:16
And the day after, so it would have been the 30th of May,
00:24:19
in Thurrock, someone took money out.
00:24:22
And it was from Sylvia Stuart's account.
00:24:25
Creature of habit.
00:24:26
Didn't go to Thurrock in the middle of the night,
00:24:28
didn't take any money in the middle of the night.
00:24:30
So that was suspicious.
00:24:32
The same card was used to try and take out money again.
00:24:36
They also later, 300 pounds was taken out,
00:24:38
and then another attempt at 500 pound
00:24:40
but obviously limited up and had been stopped.
00:24:44
And this was obviously Qazimaj.
00:24:46
Now, Sylvia's clearly given her PIN number
00:24:49
to Qazimaj so that he withdraws the money, because when
00:24:53
the police discover that her bank card has been used
00:24:58
in an ATM, they naturally look at the CCTV, which
00:25:02
is above every ATM machine.
00:25:04
And no sign of Sylvia in any of those CCTV images.
00:25:14
NARRATOR: Detectives got their biggest
00:25:15
break yet when Ali Qazimaj's car was found abandoned in Dover.
00:25:21
But evidence within the vehicle also
00:25:23
confirmed their worst fears.
00:25:26
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: When Qazimaj's car was discovered,
00:25:28
there were traces of blood on the outside
00:25:31
of the driver's door.
00:25:32
And this blood matched Peter's DNA profile.
00:25:36
In the boot, they found some human hairs.
00:25:38
And they matched Sylvia's profile.
00:25:41
They also found in the car a carrier bag
00:25:43
in the passenger foot well, which had
00:25:45
Qazimaj's fingerprints on it.
00:25:47
And Qazimaj's fingerprints were also
00:25:49
found on the driver's door.
00:25:50
So it was a no doubt that this was Qazimaj's car,
00:25:53
and it was a direct link to the victims.
00:25:55
KARIM KHALIL QC: And so it became apparent
00:25:57
that somehow Sylvia likely had been
00:26:00
placed into that boot of that car and taken somewhere.
00:26:03
We don't know where, but he d deposited her body.
00:26:12
NARRATOR: Back in Weybread, the news
00:26:15
that Ali Qazimaj was the prime suspect in the now
00:26:18
double-murder case brought a sense of consolation
00:26:22
to the village.
00:26:23
ANTHONY CARROLL: When Qazimaj's name was released,
00:26:25
I suppose some people were relieved,
00:26:27
as people had been worried that the killer might
00:26:29
still be in the community.
00:26:31
So people were probably relieved that police
00:26:33
suspected who the killer was and were hunting for him.
00:26:36
NARRATOR: Ali Qazimaj had taken the lives
00:26:39
of Peter and Sylvia Stuart for nothing more
00:26:42
than his own financial gain.
00:26:44
The 43-year-old, who was a carer for the couple's relative,
00:26:48
Sidney Paxman, had learned about the Stuarts
00:26:51
in conversation with him.
00:26:53
Qazimaj believed that the Stuarts
00:26:55
were millionaires, because that's what
00:26:57
Sidney Paxman had told him.
00:26:59
And I think his eyes probably lit up at this point
00:27:02
in time, because Sidney also said
00:27:04
that they didn't have a very good relationship
00:27:06
with their son-in-law.
00:27:07
So not only have you got this potential reward of lots
00:27:10
of money to go after, but you've got
00:27:12
another suspect who's going to distract the police from you.
00:27:16
So I think Qazimaj thought he really was onto something here.
00:27:19
They represented for Ali Qazimaj a natural target.
00:27:25
Now, did he set out originally to kill them
00:27:28
or did he simply set out to extort them,
00:27:32
demand money from them?
00:27:34
Qazimaj was quite good at persuading
00:27:37
people to give him money.
00:27:39
Sidney Paxman, for example, had given him
00:27:41
about 10,000 pounds during the period in which
00:27:43
he was looking after him.
00:27:45
He was used to getting money out of elderly people,
00:27:47
and he could be at one moment affable
00:27:50
but at the moment frightening.
00:27:55
NARRATOR: Investigators discovered CCTV footage
00:27:59
from the 4th of June, the day after the discovery of Peter
00:28:03
Stuart's body, showing Qazimaj boarding
00:28:07
a ferry at the Port of Dover.
00:28:09
ANTHONY CARROLL: Qazimaj had fled to Europe,
00:28:10
and some people believe that with his connections
00:28:13
he might disappear forever.
00:28:14
So a lot of people were thinking he'd never be found
00:28:16
and be brought back to justice.
00:28:18
But the police believed they would find him
00:28:19
and carried on with their search.
00:28:22
NARRATOR: Detectives released pictures of Ali Qazimaj
00:28:25
across Europe in a desperate attempt
00:28:27
to find the double killer.
00:28:30
The supposed former special forces
00:28:32
soldier come hit man could have been anywhere on the continent.
00:28:36
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Qazimaj was on the run
00:28:38
for around two weeks.
00:28:39
And this is really interesting for me,
00:28:41
because for somebody who claims to have been
00:28:43
a professional hitman, these people are very used to going
00:28:46
to ground, disappearing.
00:28:48
So I think that really does invalidate
00:28:50
those claims that he made.
00:28:52
He would have been much better at going off the radar
00:28:55
if that was really the case.
00:28:57
And he was spotted by a hostel worker
00:29:00
in Luxembourg, who had seen a picture of him on the internet.
00:29:03
So police caught up with him incredibly quickly.
00:29:06
He wasn't the underworld figure that he'd like to think he was.
00:29:11
NARRATOR: Qazimaj had been hiding out
00:29:13
at a hostel for asylum seekers.
00:29:15
On the 16th of June, 2016, just over two weeks
00:29:20
since the murders of Peter and Sylvia Stuart,
00:29:23
he was arrested by local police in Luxembourg.
00:29:26
ANTHONY CARROLL: In an incredible coincidence and sort
00:29:29
of stroke of luck for the police,
00:29:30
this person had put two and two together,
00:29:32
else he might have escaped justice forever.
00:29:41
NARRATOR: Although detectives were confident they had
00:29:44
captured their man, Qazimaj used a different alias when
00:29:48
speaking with the authorities.
00:29:50
GEOFFREY WANSELL: When he's first interrogated,
00:29:52
he's interrogated as Vital Dapi and insists he doesn't
00:29:55
know who Ali Qazimaj is.
00:29:58
And indeed, not only does he not know who he is,
00:30:01
he's never even been to England.
00:30:02
He's still an asylum seeker in Europe.
00:30:05
It is, of course, a complete tissue of lies.
00:30:10
NARRATOR: British investigators had
00:30:12
Qazimaj's fingerprints from when he first
00:30:15
claimed asylum in the country.
00:30:17
So the 43-year-old's assertions that he
00:30:19
was a different person, Vital Dapi, were easily disproved.
00:30:24
Those fingerprints are the same fingerprints
00:30:26
as the person that turned up in the UK in 1999,
00:30:30
had his fingerprints taken.
00:30:31
They matched.
00:30:33
The forensic evidence in the Citroen driven, owned,
00:30:37
and abandoned by Qazimaj soon after he murdered the Stuarts,
00:30:43
the fingerprint expert 16 times identified fingerprints that
00:30:48
tied that person as the same as the person who claimed that he
00:30:51
was Qazimaj from Kosovo and the fingerprints taken
00:30:55
in Luxembourg were the person now detained.
00:30:59
NARRATOR: Qazimaj and Dapi had another similarity, which
00:31:02
had been recorded when the carer was previously arrested
00:31:06
years before in the UK.
00:31:09
KARIM KHALIL QC: When he was in Luxembourg,
00:31:11
it was noted that he had a particular tattoo
00:31:14
on the upper part of one of his arms.
00:31:17
It was of an eagle clutching a heart, I think.
00:31:20
And historically, on an old custody record,
00:31:24
there was a note of this identical tattoo being
00:31:27
on the upper arm on the same side of a man bearing
00:31:30
one of the other alias names.
00:31:32
And so the chances of such a coincidence happening
00:31:36
were thought to be vanishingly small.
00:31:41
NARRATOR: On July the 4th, 2016, Ali Qazimaj
00:31:46
was extradited back to the UK.
00:31:49
Despite the overwhelming forensic evidence
00:31:51
that disproved his claim, he continued
00:31:54
to refer to himself as an innocent Albanian
00:31:57
asylum seeker named Vital Dapi.
00:32:00
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He claims he's never been to the UK,
00:32:03
yet when he's talking to police, he's using English slang words.
00:32:07
He's talking colloquially.
00:32:09
And this is the kind of language that you
00:32:10
don't get from watching English TV series on the internet.
00:32:14
You have to be in the UK, living life in the UK
00:32:17
to know what some of these phrases mean.
00:32:19
So there were lots of alarm bells there for police.
00:32:23
KARIM KHALIL QC: Upon arrival, he
00:32:24
reverted to pretending that he didn't speak good English.
00:32:28
He denied that he had the identity which
00:32:30
is being ascribed to him, claiming that he had
00:32:33
at all times been elsewhere.
00:32:35
And so he ran the defense of mistaken identity.
00:32:41
NARRATOR: On the 22nd of July, Qazimaj was charged
00:32:45
with two counts of murder.
00:32:47
But the 43-year-old was sticking to his story.
00:32:50
It would be up to prosecutor Karim Khalil QC
00:32:53
to prove that the carer turned killer had murdered
00:32:57
the Stuarts for their money.
00:33:03
KARIM KHALIL QC: He was an extreme gambler.
00:33:05
He had become more and more in debt as the time
00:33:08
of these killings approached.
00:33:10
And he was unable to meet those debts.
00:33:13
So it appeared reasonably clear to the prosecution
00:33:16
that the motive for these killings
00:33:18
was actually straightforward financial greed.
00:33:22
He needed to find a way to cover his debts
00:33:25
and/or set up a new life somewhere else.
00:33:28
And so he targeted these people as ones whom he believed
00:33:32
had access to ready finances.
00:33:35
And he could simply go and secure it from them.
00:33:37
They'd be too vulnerable to resist.
00:33:40
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: I don't think that the murder of Peter
00:33:42
and Sylvia was in any way a way of getting money to pay
00:33:46
off those gambling debts.
00:33:47
I think that this was a way of going after a really
00:33:50
big reward for himself.
00:33:52
And when you are gambling, there's
00:33:54
quite a lot of uncertainty as to whether you're
00:33:56
going to be successful.
00:33:58
But in this case, Qazimaj thought this was [INAUDIBLE]..
00:34:01
He really thought he'd set himself up for life, I think.
00:34:10
NARRATOR: Despite the damning forensic evidence against him,
00:34:14
Qazimaj claimed total innocence, asserting that he was
00:34:18
a completely different person.
00:34:21
ZACH WARD: Ali Qazimaj went by three aliases--
00:34:23
Ali Qazimaj, Marco Costa, and Vital Dapi.
00:34:27
And that was his defense, that they had the wrong person,
00:34:29
that he'd never been to England, and they made a mistake
00:34:32
and that he would never hurt a fly, let alone
00:34:34
murder two people.
00:34:35
KARIM KHALIL QC: The principle challenge of the case
00:34:37
was to prove that these three identities all related
00:34:41
to the same one person and that that one
00:34:44
person was the man in the dock named
00:34:47
by the Crown as Ali Qazimaj.
00:34:49
NARRATOR: Part of Qazimaj's defense
00:34:51
was to prove beyond doubt that he was Vital Dapi.
00:34:55
But the evidence he produced seemed to make
00:34:58
him look even more guilty.
00:35:00
KARIM KHALIL QC: In fact, some of these documents
00:35:01
were actually provided by Al Qazimaj
00:35:04
during the trial in support of his defense.
00:35:06
But they ultimately backfired, because by way of example,
00:35:10
a photograph of his identity in Albania under one name,
00:35:14
we could demonstrate was the identical photograph which
00:35:17
he had used on his UK passport under an entirely
00:35:21
different name.
00:35:22
And so when one put all the pieces of that jigsaw together,
00:35:26
his fingerprints, each of these items
00:35:28
was brought together under the different identities,
00:35:32
and demonstrated all to relate to the same person.
00:35:41
NARRATOR: Qazimaj's fabrications were falling apart,
00:35:44
but he continued to deny the evidence
00:35:47
against him when he took the stand at Ipswich Crown Court.
00:35:51
At the trial, Qazimaj really dug his heels in.
00:35:54
And he came back at every single piece of evidence that was
00:35:58
presented by the prosecution.
00:36:00
He questioned the validity of it.
00:36:02
He really did not make it very easy.
00:36:05
Qazimaj insisted in the witness box
00:36:08
that the fingerprints were planted,
00:36:11
that he was a victim of mistaken identity,
00:36:15
that he had nothing to do with this killings,
00:36:18
he was entirely innocent.
00:36:20
It was flimsy beyond words.
00:36:24
And also, he starts to take on the victim role at this point
00:36:27
as well.
00:36:28
He says, I've been set up by the police.
00:36:30
They have deliberately fabricated this evidence.
00:36:33
Poor me.
00:36:34
So that's a slight change in tactic.
00:36:36
It's a way of trying to get people to feel sorry for him,
00:36:39
but his story is so incredulous that that's
00:36:42
never going to happen.
00:36:48
NARRATOR: Defiant to the end, Qazimaj
00:36:50
was even given the chance to prove his innocence
00:36:54
by the prosecution.
00:36:55
KARIM KHALIL QC: I recall eventually
00:36:57
giving him the opportunity as he was in the witness box
00:37:00
to clear his name absolutely by way of inviting him to agree
00:37:05
to provide fingerprints whilst giving evidence
00:37:09
under the supervision of his defense team,
00:37:12
with scientists from both prosecution and defense present
00:37:16
and having controlled examination
00:37:18
of those fingerprints, which could then be compared,
00:37:21
of course, with the disputed fingerprints
00:37:23
that we'd heard so much about during the course of the trial.
00:37:26
And he quietly declined that invitation.
00:37:29
And so the inference was obvious for the jury,
00:37:32
I'm sure from that.
00:37:34
But he seemed neither embarrassed nor anxious
00:37:36
about being presented with that opportunity.
00:37:39
He simply declined it and moved on.
00:37:41
So quite a cold, careful, calculated man,
00:37:45
who plainly had no concern for what he had done,
00:37:48
had achieved his end, and was obviously seeking
00:37:51
to avoid the consequences.
00:37:57
NARRATOR: On the 13th of March, 2017,
00:38:01
the jury took just three hours to find Ali
00:38:04
Qazimaj guilty of both murders.
00:38:07
The following day, the 44-year-old former carer
00:38:10
was sentenced to life.
00:38:12
ANDY BAKER: As he was led from the dock on conviction
00:38:15
and again found guilty of murder,
00:38:17
life mandatory, with a recommendation
00:38:19
to serve 35 years, which will mean that he
00:38:22
will serve to his late 70s.
00:38:25
GEOFFREY WANSELL: The judge calls the crimes terrible.
00:38:27
The judge also describes Qazimaj,
00:38:30
which I think is very accurate, as a ruthless and accomplished
00:38:34
killer.
00:38:35
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Other people are simply
00:38:36
a means to an end for him.
00:38:38
He doesn't see them as people with lives and rights
00:38:42
and connections to other people.
00:38:43
They're simply a barrier that's in the way
00:38:46
of him getting what he wants.
00:38:48
And that results in some incredibly evil behavior.
00:38:53
NARRATOR: Qazimaj's plan of pretending to be someone else
00:38:56
had backfired spectacularly.
00:38:59
ZACH WARD: I'd probably describe Qazimaj as a bit of a chancer
00:39:02
to go to court and say that it's not me,
00:39:05
you've got the wrong person, and it's mistaken identity,
00:39:07
in this day and age where there's overwhelming evidence
00:39:10
to suggest otherwise takes a piece of a brass neck
00:39:13
to try and get away with that.
00:39:15
I think we're in the realms of, like, the dog
00:39:17
ate my homework territory.
00:39:19
And I just think there is no way he wasn't
00:39:21
going to go down for it when you look
00:39:22
at the evidence that was there.
00:39:24
NARRATOR: In a statement released during the trial,
00:39:27
Qazimaj addressed the victim's family directly.
00:39:31
He has never disclosed the whereabouts
00:39:33
of Sylvia Stuart's remains.
00:39:35
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He says, I'm very sorry for your family,
00:39:37
but I can't tell you where your mother is,
00:39:41
because I didn't kill her.
00:39:42
And this is something that he was very,
00:39:46
very intent on keeping going.
00:39:49
And I think, in a way, this gives him a sense of control,
00:39:53
because there are lots of things in his life
00:39:55
that he has no control over now, but this
00:39:57
is one of those things.
00:39:58
He has that knowledge.
00:39:59
He has the information.
00:40:00
There is no doubt that this is the man who murdered Sylvia.
00:40:03
And he's going to maintain that position,
00:40:05
unfortunately I feel, for a very long time.
00:40:09
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Neither Peter nor Sylvia deserved to die.
00:40:13
The amount of money that he managed to extract from them,
00:40:16
a few pounds, would have done nothing to settle
00:40:19
any of his gambling debts.
00:40:21
I think he killed them because he didn't know what else to do.
00:40:24
That was the only way his mind worked.
00:40:27
And even shortly after his conviction and imprisonment,
00:40:31
it was hoped that Ali Qazimaj might provide information
00:40:35
to help the police find Sylvia's body,
00:40:38
to give some small comfort to her family.
00:40:41
There was an initial request that he was willing to speak
00:40:44
to the police, but that then came to nothing,
00:40:47
and he has said no more.
00:40:49
ZACH WARD: I think that will always be the thing that will
00:40:52
shock me, and sadly, I think it's probably a secret
00:40:55
that he'll take to his grave.
00:41:01
NARRATOR: Qazimaj's silence means
00:41:03
that he will never be eligible for an early release
00:41:06
from prison.
00:41:08
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: There has been a recent piece
00:41:09
of legislation passed in England and Wales,
00:41:11
when killers refuse to reveal the location
00:41:15
of their victim's remains, they're not able to get parole.
00:41:18
So I think this might become more relevant to this case
00:41:21
as the years go by, because Qazimaj, if he continues
00:41:25
to deny responsibility, if he continues to conceal
00:41:29
the whereabouts of Sylvia's body,
00:41:31
he's never getting out of prison.
00:41:33
ANDY BAKER: He appealed in 2019 against the conviction,
00:41:37
and that appeal wasn't upheld.
00:41:39
So he's been through a full trial and an appeal.
00:41:42
And he remains convicted of the double murder.
00:41:46
And there's no doubt that he murdered them for gain.
00:41:49
He needed money.
00:41:50
He wanted money, and that was the quickest
00:41:52
way he could get money.
00:41:53
GEOFFREY WANSELL: I would say Qazimaj
00:41:55
is a truly ruthless man, who knows no bounds
00:41:58
to what he's prepared to do.
00:41:59
And I think that perhaps it was easy to overlook
00:42:02
that ruthlessness behind this apparent facade of caring.
00:42:08
Qazimaj was an evil, calculating killer
00:42:11
who lived in a fantasy world and was prepared to murder
00:42:14
people for his own gains.
00:42:16
For the family's sake, I hope that one day Qazimaj would own
00:42:19
up on what he's actually done so they
00:42:22
can have closure on this awful part of their lives.
00:42:31
NARRATOR: Qazimaj arrived on British soil as an enigma.
00:42:35
If he served in the Albanian Special Forces
00:42:38
or was a trained assassin, only he knows for sure.
00:42:43
What is in no doubt is there he abused his position as a carer
00:42:48
to fund a gambling addiction and killed two innocent victims
00:42:52
for no other reason than to steal their money,
00:42:56
making Ali Qazimaj one of the world's most evil killers.
00:43:01
[MUSIC PLAYING]
