Brother is cleared over revenge killing

Wasim Malik, 22, was unanimously found not guilty by a jury at Leeds Crown Court yesterday of unlawfully killing Peter Flanagan, 29, in Meanwood, Leeds, in December 2008.

Malik, of Miles Hill Road, Leeds, was also found not guilty of grievous bodily harm to Mr Flanagan's friend, Peter Tobin.

The verdicts came at the end of a retrial after an earlier jury could not reach verdicts in his case but convicted his brother Thsawar Malik, of the manslaughter of Mr Flanagan and grievous bodily harm with intent to Mr Tobin. He is now serving a 15-year jail sentence.

The court heard Mr Flanagan and Mr Tobin had been drinking together before they decided to go to the home of the Malik family in the early hours because Mr Flanagan blamed someone there for causing damage to his car some weeks earlier.

Bricks were thrown through the windows of the house following which Thsawar and Wasim Malik dressed and went round to Mr Tobin's home in Beckhill Grove, Meanwood, to find the two men responsible.

There was a confrontation on a grassed area nearby during which Thsawar Malik produced a knife and stabbed Mr Tobin in the stomach and Mr Flanagan in the chest, the blade penetrating his heart killing him.

Wasim Malik maintained he had not known his brother was armed with the knife. He said it was only as they were running away that his brother had told him he had stabbed someone.