Six years in prison for drug lord Kelmendi

pristina - One of the most notorious drug criminals in Europe, Naser Kelmendi (61), has been sentenced to six years in prison in Kosovo. He had also been charged with murder, but he was acquitted of it.

He had been detained in Kosovo five years ago on suspicion of leading a family network that smuggled heroin and other drugs from Afghanistan to Turkey and Western Europe. The American authorities had put the Albanian born Albanian in 2012 on the list of about one hundred heaviest drug criminals.

Kelmendi had a Bosnian passport. After his arrest, the Bosnian authorities asked for his extradition because he would have been involved in the murder of the Bosnian Muslim Ramiz Delali. He had made a name for himself as a warlord in the Balkan War, but later became active in organized crime. Kelmendi, however, was not extradited because Kosovo and Bosnia have no extradition treaty.