A “ruthless” killer who murdered Suffolk couple Peter and Sylvia Stuart will have to serve at least 35 years of a life sentence.
Ali Qazimaj was found guilty on Monday by a jury at Ipswich Crown Court after a month-long trial of killing 75-year-old Peter Stuart and his 69-year-old wife, who lived in Weybread.
Sentencing him, Mr Justice Jeremy Stuart-Smith described the killings as “exceptional and terrible” and described him as a “ruthless and accomplished” killer.”
He said Qazimaj would have to serve a minimum of 35 years before he could be considered for release.
In a statement written by the defendant after his conviction, which was read to the court by his barrister Max Hill QC today, he continued to protest his innocence and claimed he was the victim of mistaken identity.
He said he felt sorry for Mr and Mrs Stuart’s daughter, Christy Paxman, but he couldn’t help her with the whereabouts of her mother’s body as he hadn’t killed her.
In the statement he said he “would not kill a fly, let alone two people”.
He also said he wasn’t asking for mercy or forgiveness as he had nothing to do with the murders.
Following Qazimaj’s conviction yesterday, Mr and Mrs Stuart’s family described him as a “twisted individual” who committed a “wicked crime”.
In the statement, the family said they hoped that one day Qazimaj would have the “moral courage” to reveal where he had hidden the body of Mrs Stuart, who has never been found despite an extensive police investigation.
In a victim statement read to the court the couple’s daughter Christy Paxman - their only child - described Qazimaj as “evil” and said her life had been changed forever by the death of her parents.
She said she had found it hard to listen to Qazimaj’s evidence during the trial when he talked about his mother dying and organising her funeral when she could not bury her mother and didn’t even know the date she died.
Mrs Paxman also said that every day from now on she would be waiting for police officers to knock at her door to tell her they had found her mother’s body.
Qazimaj, a former asylum seeker who came to the UK in 1999, insisted throughout the trial that he was the victim of mistaken identity and claimed he had never set foot in the UK before being extradited from Luxembourg last July.
The defendant, who lived in Tilbury, denied killing Mr and Mrs Stuart between May 29 and June 3 last year.
During the trial, the prosecution asserted that Qazimaj was an “arrogant and callous” killer while he insisted his name was Vital Dapi and that he was the victim of mistaken identity.
The court heard that Mr and Mrs Stuart and were reported missing by their daughter on June 3 last year after they missed their weekly line dancing class and hadn’t been seen for several days.
Police found Mr Stuart’s body, which had been stabbed nine times, partly hidden by a tarpaulin in a ditch in woodland near his home in Mill Lane, Weybread, on June 3 while his wife’s body has never been found.
Prosecution counsel, Karim Khalil QC told the court that Qazimaj knew of the Stuarts through their son-in-law Steven Paxman who was married to the couple’s daughter Christy.
The court heard that Qazimaj had been a carer for Steven Paxman’s father Sidney Paxman and had allegedly been told by him that Mr and Mrs Stuart were millionaires.
It was also claimed that Qazimaj told Sidney Paxman that Tilbury marshes would be “a good place to dispose of a body”.
It was claimed that Qazimaj, who also used the name Marco Costa, had a gambling habit which resulted in him getting into debt.
Mr Khalil told the court that on June 3 last year, Qazimaj had resigned from his job at a recycling company in Essex and the following day he driven to Dover where he caught a ferry after abandoning his Citroen.
He told the court that Qazimaj was arrested in Luxembourg on June 7 and extradited to the UK the following month.
Mr Khalil said that Peter Stuart’s DNA was found in blood on the driver’s door of the Citroen and hairs containing Mrs Stuart’s DNA were found in the boot.
During the trial a fingerprint expert said fingerprints matching those of the man calling himself Vital Dapi were found on the petrol cap and the door of the car and on a plastic bag in the car.
He said he had compared the fingerprints found on the car with fingerprint lifts taken from Ali Qazimaj and they all matched.
However giving evidence the defendant denied the fingerprints on the car were his and said he didn’t know how they got there.
He claimed his fingerprints must have been swapped by police officers and that the fingerprints examined by the expert had all come from Ali Qazimaj.
Giving evidence, the defendant disputed that DNA taken from him and DNA taken from a man calling himself Ali Qazimaj were the same and said there could be six othe people in the world with the same DNA as him.
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