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TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albanian police say that an Albanian man sentenced for killing a police officer in 2015 has been deported home from the United States.
A statement Wednesday said Ruhan Hiraj, 22, was deported after coordination with U.S. authorities.
In 2018 Hiraj was sentenced to 15 years of jail for the murder of police officer Ibrahim Basha during a police crackdown in a major illegal marijuana-growing village, Lazarat, in 2015.
Lazarat, a village 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of the capital, Tirana, came to prominence in 2014 after special police forces destroyed 102 tons of marijuana and 530,000 marijuana plants with an estimated market value at the time of 6.4 billion euros ($8.2 billion). That was more than 60% of the country's annual gross domestic product.
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