Albanian killer, 41, wanted over death of boss he punched in vicious attack evaded UK authorities for FOUR years by using a fake identity and laying low in a Surrey village before he was finally brought to justice

An Albanian killer who used a false name to hide from the police for nearly half a decade and set up a new life for himself after punching his boss during a vicious attack has been jailed.

Arjan Balla, 41, managed to slip under the radar using a false identity while was wanted by British authorities for killing his boss Anastassios Delis following a brutal assault after losing his job at a steel company.

He had been working in the UK illegally under the name Tahir Karaj and was given a three year jail term in 2007 for causing GBH, but he was released after a year and deported to Albania. 

Balla was wanted for a second time after Mr Delis died from his injuries 11 years later. Astonishingly, the thug managed to return to Britain and settle in Whyteleafe, Surrey where he ran a business for four years before he was finally caught at Stansted Airport following a trip to Albania.

But because Balla was known as Karaj to the British authorities it took an 'intelligence led' investigation with the aid of the National Crime Agency to reveal his true name. 

On Monday at Southampton Crown Court Balla was jailed for 12 months after admitting manslaughter. 

Mr Delis spent 11 years at a care home in a 'vegetative state' having been punched in head by Balla and then hitting his head on the ground as he fell.

His wife Christine said he faced a 'living death' as he required around the clock care and was in a coma.

Mr Delis, a father three, died from his injuries in December 2017, aged 68, and the CPS authorised manslaughter charges in 2019. However, Balla was not arrested until January 2024.

It emerged that from 2020 he was in Whyteleafe, Surrey, having set up a new life and even a business there.

Judge Christopher Parker KC said: 'The taking of human life should be acknowledged even as late as this. The passage of time does not erase the impact of what you did all those years ago.'

Judge Parker KC said it was a 'planned confrontation in which there was a highly predictable escalation into violence. He said: 'There were two or three blows. When he was on the ground he was kicked unnecessarily as it turned out.'

In a statement read out in the previous court proceedings, Mrs Delis said her life had been 'destroyed', describing her husband as 'a hardworking man who has worked all of his life'.

Despite being rushed to hospital and emergency surgery, Mr Delis was left unable to breathe for himself and could only open his eyes. The court was told how he sustained 'serious head injuries' and suffered 'severe impairment of consciousness'. A postmortem found that his death was as a result of the delayed effects of the head injury caused in November 2006.

Prosecutor Sally Howes KC said: 'There is no doubt that the initial head injury was the underlying cause.'

Matthew Farmer, defending, said his client 'expresses his remorse' and takes 'responsibility for what happened'.

He added: 'When he took the decision he made to confront Mr Delis back in 2006 he was 24. What he did is something he is and will always be ashamed of. I cannot maintain that it is a one-punch manslaughter. But it is not far off it.

'He was, reading between the lines, I would submit, essentially trying to get his job back.'

Hampshire Constabulary's Police Staff Investigator Gary Sumner, who led the manslaughter investigation, told of the complications they faced.

He said: 'Initial enquiries following the victim's death were hampered by the fact that Balla had been under a false identity in the UK, even throughout the initial GBH criminal investigation and his imprisonment.

'That meant that initial efforts to locate him under the name Tahir Karaj were unsuccessful, causing us complex difficulties throughout the investigation.

'Following our own enquiries, alongside the support of the National Crime Agency, we were eventually able to determine that Karaj was in fact named Arjan Balla and he was arrested and charged swiftly after that.'

Anthony Johns, Senior Crown Prosecutor with CPS Wessex, said: 'This was an incredibly tragic case, spanning nearly two decades and involving organisations across the criminal justice system and our international partners in Europe.

'Once it became clear that Mr Delis died as a direct result of Balla's actions, we were determined to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law and demonstrate that neither time nor evasion will prevent justice being served.'