Update: Slovakian justice ministry challenges annulment of jail sentence for notorious drug trafficker

The Slovakian justice ministry may make a formal complaint against the annulment of a sentence for an Albanian citizen convicted of drug smuggling, the local media reported, September 10.

“The Slovak justice ministry has challenged the annulment of a verdict under which Kosovo Albanian Baki S. was sentenced to 22 years in prison for drug dealing, recently announced by a Slovak regional court, the ministry’s spokeswoman Jana Zlatohlavkova said today,” according to internet daily The Daily.SK.

Baki S. was sentenced in June 2011, for producing and smuggling heroin from Turkey to Slovakia. The sentence was pronounced in absentia as the suspect could not be located. He was finally apprehended in Kosovo in October 2012 and extradited to Slovakia.

The suspect’s plea for a re-trial was granted after a court in Presov announced that Baki S. was extradited from Kosovo based on guarantees that a new trial would be held. Zlatohlavkova stated that no such deal had been made.

Baki S. is currently in custody. A date for a possible re-trial has not been set.