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Kurdish fugitive denies stabbing father to death outside city bar
A KURDISH asylum seeker who fled the country following the fatal stabbing of a father-of-one has gone on trial for murder after being extradited from Greece.
Dana Abdullah, 29, was detained under a European arrest warrant in July, more then five years after 27-year-old Mohammed Basier was knifed in the heart outside the West End Bar in Lumb Lane, Bradford.
A month after the killing Adbullah was stopped in France where he was using a false name, but after being moved on by the authorities he was not arrested until this year when he was found in Greece again using a false identity.
Abdullah has denied being the man who fatally stabbed Mr Basier as he went to get a taxi with his girlfriend in February 2004, but a jury at Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday that the killing may have been a case of mistaken identity.
Prosecutor David Hatton QC described how Abdullah, who had been seeking political asylum in this country since 2002, had been involved in an early- hours incident in the West End Bar when a drink was apparently spilled.
The court heard that Abdullah was hit twice by two Asian men inside the bar, but that Mr Basier had not been involved in the incident himself and had only told the defendant to "chill".
Mr Hatton alleged that Abdullah was driven away by a friend, but as he visited addresses in the city he also recruited other men on his mobile phone to go back to the bar.
The court heard that at one address Abdullah had asked a friend to go with him to "fight a Pakistani in a disco".
Mr Hatton said it was Mr Basier's tragedy that when he left the premises it coincided with the return of Abdullah.
As Mr Basier walked with his girlfriend Abdullah confronted him in the street.
"The defendant raised a clenched fist and thumped it into the left side of Mr Basier's chest," said Mr Hatton.
"The clenched fist had contained a knife. Mr Basier bled profusely as you will see in a minute from the photographs of the street taken afterwards."
Despite being stabbed Mr Basier ran for his life and the jury was shown CCTV footage of his final moments before he collapsed having allegedly been pursued by Abdullah, who denies murder.
"Why was Mr Basier selected?" asked Mr Hatton. "That is something that will probably never be known. Whether it is the case that the defendant was so angered and bent on vengeance that any Pakistani from the bar would do we cannot say.
"Whether he mistook Mr Basier for the man who had been involved in the incident over the spilled drink we cannot say, but it is the case that those two men were not dissimilar and both had what is described as a chin-strap beard.
"It doesn't in fact matter why. What matters, and what will matter in this trial, is who and we say that is the defendant."
The jury heard that having been extradited from Greece Abdullah declined to be interviewed by the police.
Referring to Abdullah fleeing the country, Mr Hatton said: "That is itself, you may conclude, curious behaviour for a man who had been seeking, and was continuing to seek, asylum on these shores and who had on his account no involvement in this matter."
Mr Basier, a married man, suffered a 19-centimetre deep wound to his chest and despite efforts to resuscitate him in hospital he was pronounced dead soon after his arrival.
"Save for having been in the vicinity of the trouble that occurred in the bar and save for having told the defendant to chill during that trouble he (Mr Basier) had no involvement at all with defendant or any trouble," said Mr Hatton.
The trial continues.
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