by Three members of the Albanian gang that brutally murdered a 23-year-old boy in Cardiff and threw him into a residential street have been jailed.
The body of Tomasz Waga of Dagenham in east London was found severely beaten on Westville Road in the Penylan area of the city on 28 January 2021.
Josif Nushi, Mihal Dhana and Hysland Aliaj were found guilty of participating in Mr Waga’s murder following a trial at Newport Crown Court.
The jury was told that Mr Waga was one of four people who had come from London that night to steal from a cannabis factory set up by an organized crime group.
Mr. Waga had a previous conviction for committing a similar offence.
When they broke into the three-story property, a former GP practice on Newport Road, they discovered Aliaj, the “gardener” of the gang, was sleeping in one of the rooms.
Hearing the thieves, Aliaj alerted the other members, including Nushi and Dhana, who managed to reach the house within five minutes.
Waga and his partner Carl Davies, who stayed at home to collect cannabis plants, tried to escape through an upstairs window but were cornered by the three defendants.
Mr Davies managed to escape from the property with some injuries before hiding behind a nearby garden wall.
Given his injuries – there were 28 in total and included severe head trauma, broken ribs and a broken lower back – Mr Waga is believed to have suffered a sustained assault, including kicks and stampedes, before he was dragged out of the house. a waiting Mercedes vehicle.
He was driven a short distance before being pushed out of the car into the street.
In her statement read out to the court, Waga’s sister, Patrycja Waga, said her brother was “discarded like garbage”.
Ms. Waga said: “The pain of not being able to be there to comfort her in the last moments of her life as her older sister was unimaginable, not to mention being dumped like a garbage bag in an inhumane way, it will haunt me as she will see her lifeless and battered face during official identification. in the rest.
“Tomasz had his whole life ahead of him, including a newborn son who was now fatherless and could not, among other things, celebrate Father’s Day outside the cemetery.
“He was my only brother, and despite the bad choices he made, he had a good heart and always had good intentions.”
He said the unfolding events “do not guarantee” that his brother was killed.
Nushi and Cathays, 28, from Ninian Road, Roath, and Dhana, 29, from Colum Road, were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday – Nushi serving a minimum of 20 years and Dhana a minimum of 16 years in prison.
Aliaj, 31, without a fixed residence, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was told he would serve two-thirds of his sentence before he was released on a license.
Supreme Court judge Sir Barry Cotter said he had considered former firefighter Aliaj’s record of bravery and his wife’s letter, but there was no suggestion that he had been “defended, gullible or smuggled into the country”.
Nushi and Dhana were also found guilty of willful injury over Mr. Davies, while Aliaj was also found guilty of unlawful injury. Nushi and Aliaj also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture a Class B controlled drug. They were convicted simultaneously on each of these charges.
Gledis Mehalla, 20, 20, of Lansdowne Road, London, and Mario Qato, 20, of Lansdowne Road, London, were acquitted of the murder of Mr Waga as the jury was directed to find him not guilty due to lack of evidence.
Judge Cotter described the drug gang as a “sophisticated large-scale breeding operation”.
“Tomasz Waga was 23 years old. His death leaves behind bereaved parents, a loving sister, a wife, and a newborn son who will never know his father.
“The family’s pain and loss will never end – for them it’s a life sentence.”
