189 years for rap video murderers

Five gang members including an illegal immigrant who should have been deported nine years ago were jailed for a total of 189 years for murdering two people as they filmed a rap video.

Leonardo Reid, 15, and Klevi Shekaj, 23, died after a mass brawl involving up to 40 people broke out at the video shoot in Elthorne Road, Islington, north London on 29 June 2023.

Kosovan Lorik Lupqi, 22, and Portuguese national Jason Furtado, 28, were both on tags at the time of the killings.

Furtado, born to Angolan parents, was an illegal immigrant with an appalling criminal record and the Home Office had first tried to deport him nine years ago.

He launched at least two appeals against the decision and carried on committing serious offences in the lead up to the murders.

Lupqi fled to Kosovo after the attacks and was extradited back to the UK last November.

His brother Dior Lupqi was only 15 when he and his gang associates stabbed Nashon Esbrand, 27 to death in Mitchison Road, Islington, in August 2017.

Dior who landed the fatal blow was later jailed for a minimum of 12 years for murder.

Furtado and Loriq Lupqi were convicted of two charges of murder by an Old Bailey jury alongside Abel Chunda, 29, who has 97 previous convictions including robbery, assault and possession of offensive weapons.

Eden Clark, 31, and Xavier Poponne, 22, were also convicted of two counts of murder.

The five killers were also convicted of attempting to murder Abdulla Abdullahi, 28, who was also stabbed in the attack.

Lupqi was jailed for a minimum of 39 years, while Chunda and Clark were sentenced to at least 38 years imprisonment and Furtado and Poponne were jailed for a minimum of 37 years.

Lupqi fired his barrister during the trial and represented himself at sentence.

When Judge Anuja Dhir, KC, asked him if he had anything to say she would consider when sentencing he said: ‘No, just suck your Mum’.

He told the judge to ‘shut up’ as she said she would send him out of court if he made any further comments of that nature.

Upon being sentenced today Luqi again told Judge Dhir to ‘suck your mum.’

He shouted: ‘Suck your mum, f***ng racist little bitch, I’ll do 30 per and then go back to Kosovo and then come back and kill you, suck your mum’ as he was led down to the cells.

Lupqi was handcuffed to a dock officer after security said there was a ‘high risk of a violent outburst’ due to his violence towards co-defendants and staff during the trial.

A fight broke out between the defendants during the trial which left blood in the dock.

Poponne was also in the dock while Furtado, Chunda, and Clark appeared via video link.

Reading her victim impact statement in court today Leonardo’s mother Valentina Locci said: ‘Leo was a beautiful, charming, intelligent boy.

‘For the fact another human being can treat another human being so poorly no number of years will justify your callous murder of a poor innocent 15-year-old with his whole life ahead of him.

‘You will all have the chance to walk the streets one day again but you robbed my son of that.

‘There is no such thing as absolute closure but I am thankful some form of justice has been served for my son and he will rest in peace knowing the people who murdered him are now in prison.

‘The trauma, the scars and the sense of horror will never go away.

‘My past, present and future has been taken taken from me and for what, an adrenaline rush, an ego boost, a selfish gratification at the cost of others?

‘Some part of me will always be lonely broken mother.’

Mr Shekaj’s mother Valbona Shekaj sobbed in court as her victim impact statement was read by the prosecutor.

She said: ’I lost my only child, my beloved son, taken from this world, a victim of violence that has altered the cause of my life.

‘On day of his passing we shared a meal together for Eid and revelled in dreams of the future.

‘In the early hours of the morning I opened the door to police officers and words no mother should ever have to hear. In the brief hours that passed my world was shattered.

‘Klevi had simply gone out with friends. He was respectful, modest, he would buy food for stray animals as he unable to walk past suffering without trying to ease it.

‘He was a bright light filled with humour and his distinctive laugh would fill any room.

‘We were not just mother and son but two people who faced life’s challenges together.

‘The promise of who he was becoming, all the potential snuffed out in an act of senseless violence.

‘Klevi’s final words to me were a promise he would be home in five minutes, instead I was met with officers at my door delivering news which would effect me for the rest of my life.

‘What worsened our suffering was the behaviour of these men throughout the trial.

‘Instead of showing remorse or asking for forgiveness they smirked at us from the defendant’s box and argued with their lawyers.

‘They played with our pain and treated the entire trial as a game.

‘I looked at them for signs of humility or humanity from them but instead it deepened our suffering.’

Sentencing the quintet, Judge Dhir said: ‘You were out of the taxi for five minutes and such was your intent that in that five minutes, you stabbed three men, two of them died and one of them had life changing injuries.

‘When Mr Abdullahi came to court, he was terrified and reluctant to give evidence, such was the impact of your violent crimes towards him.

‘This was a planned, brutal attack, it was carried out quickly and brutally.

‘The moving impact statements from the mothers of Leo Reid and Klevi Shekaj have been read to the court.

‘On 29 June 2023, you Lorik Lupqi, learned a music video was being recorded.

‘This led to a call being made to you, Jason Furtado, who assisted in making the arrangements for what then happened.

‘The telephone evidence shows the extent of the assistance which you provided, including being present when the taxi arrived to pick up Abel Chunda, Eden Clark and Xavier Poponne.

‘You Abel Chunda, Eden Clark and Xavier Poponne, set about these young men with your machetes; the wounds which you inflicted were so serious that two of your victims died and the third required urgent medical assistance.

‘For each of the two murders, I have to impose on each of you a sentence of life imprisonment. I also have to decide the minimum term you will serve before you are eligible for release by the parole board.

‘A minimum term is not a fixed term after which you will be automatically released, it is the minimum time which you will spend in custody, it will then be for the parole board to say whether or not you will be released, if they do not, you will remain in custody.

‘If, and when you are released, you will still be on licence; this will remain the case for the rest of your life. If for any reason your licence were to be revoked, you will be recalled to prison.’

The judge told the court that a whole life order was not possible for Lupqi or Poponne due to them both being under the age of 21 at the time of the offending.

‘In a case of this nature, it would not be appropriate to impose a whole life order on some defendants but not others,’ Judge Dhir said.

‘I cannot leave this case without noting that, with the exception of Xavier Poponne, your behaviour during this trial has been appalling, with constant outbursts in court, fights in the dock and difficult behaviour coming to and leaving this court.

‘Your behaviour, Loriq Lupqi, has been by far the worst, but you Jason Furtado, Abel Chunda, and Eden Clark have also behaved violently and aggressively and have shown a complete lack of respect for the court process and the families of your victims; however, I am sentencing you for offences and not for your conduct in court.

Furtado’s parents were born in Angola but claimed asylum in the UK on 30 September 1996, less than three months before Jason was born.

From the age of 16 he began to amass an appalling criminal record and in December 2014 he took part in a £74,000 designer handbag smash-and-grab robbery at Loewe in Mayfair.

Furtado was later jailed for 19 months and the Home Office first tried to deport him in February 2016.

He appealed and a tribunal found Furtado was entitled to the highest ‘imperative’ level of protection from deportation as he had been resident in the UK for ten years.

In 2017 Furtado was jailed for four years after he crashed a stolen car into a group of drinkers outside the Old Queen’s Head in Islington, three days after the Westminster terror attack.

He ploughed into three people and a woman suffered life threatening injuries.

The Home Office tried to deport Furtado to Portugal again but he successfully appealed against the decision in 2020.

Furtado then went onto commit further offences including possessing a large kitchen knife and the Home Office launched its own appeal, resulting in the deportation order being ‘remade’.

He was on immigration bail on condition he wear an electronic tag at the time of the stabbings.

Evidence from the tracker shows Furtado was on the street with the masked knifemen when got into the taxi before travelling to the attack.

Leonardo was found with stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene just after midnight.

Mr Slevi was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Lupqi, who lived just off Boothby Road, had arranged the attacks along with Furtado.

After the killings Poponne wrote lyrics on his phone saying the two victims ‘died on the block tryna act’, the court heard.

One rap refers to ‘billing up Leo, first time dat I glide yh I got me a trio’ in a
reference to the victims.

A ‘glide’ is a phrase used to describe a ‘ride-out’, jurors heard.

After the attacks Lupqi fled to Kosovo illegally, and was extradited back the UK on 12 November last year.

Furtado, of Halton Road, Islington, Chunda of Highgate Hill, Archway, Clark, of Huddleston Road, Tufnell Park, Poponne, of Halton Road, Islington, and Lupqi, of no fixed address, all denied two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.

ends