Come pick me up, I crashed the motorbike,” Turk tells court how he drove Sokrat Vata away after the incident at the “Principotes” hotel

Nuh Mahmutoglu testified in court that Sokrat Vata called him after the serious incident in Ksamil, telling him: “Come and pick me up because I’ve had a motorbike accident.”

During the marathon hearing at the Saranda Court, the Turkish national stated that he did not know what had actually happened.

Mahmutoglu said he went to pick up Vata by car because he thought Vata had been involved in a motorbike accident. According to his testimony, Vata told him that he wanted to sleep and then got into the vehicle’s trunk.

The Turk said that at the time he was in Saranda, near the location where the crime had occurred. After picking up Sokrat Vata, he continued his journey to pick up a Turkish girl as well, insisting that he had no knowledge of what had really happened.

Nuh Mahmutoglu, who lives in Durrës, runs a business that rents out vehicles.

Defense attorney Xhoi Nela opposed the imposition of the “remand in custody” measure against her client. She argued that it had not been proven that Mahmutoglu knew about the incident.

“The mere fact that they were found together does not justify the ‘remand in custody’ measure, since it has not been proven that he knew about the incident and, consequently, the subjective element has not been established,” attorney Nela declared.