The Court of Appeal has upheld the decision of the First Instance for Izet Haxhina, accused of murdering the former Democratic MP Azem Hajdari in 1998. The Tirana court sentenced Haxhina in February of this year to 21 years in prison. 

He was sentenced for the criminal offense of "premeditated murder" committed in cooperation. 

Izet Haxhia was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April 2002 by the Tirana Criminal Chamber and then, in June 2002, by the Appeal, he was given a definitive sentence of 25 years in prison, in absentia, for the murder of former democratic MP Azem Hajdari. After 17 years of imprisonment in absentia, in May 2018, Izet Haxhia returned from Turkey to reopen the case. The former Court for Serious Crimes accepted Izet Haxhi's request to open the "Hajdari" file, and the process was initially restarted at the Court of First Instance in Tirana. 

On March 18, 2018, the three judges of Serious Crimes, Dhimitër Lara, Nure Ndreni and Sokol Binaj, decided to annul the two decisions that had convicted Haxhina in order to reopen the whole process with another panel in the Court of First Instance. MP Azem Hajdari was killed on September 12, 1998, while leaving the headquarters of the Democratic Party. Four people were convicted for this crime, including Sali Berisha's former bodyguard, Izet Haxhina.