Murder of suitcase victims is denied by kidnapper

Ji Peng said he drove Jin Xue and his wife Li Xie to a house in Holborn Grove, Leeds, on July 24 last year knowing there was a plan to tie them up when they got there.

He told Leeds Crown Court yesterday he understood the couple, who ran Timboo takeaway in Fairfield Road, Bramley, Leeds, owed money to a business partner who intended to have them taken out of the country and made to work to pay the debt.

He had been told that would leave the takeaway without management enabling his student friend Lu Yao Jia and another man Liang Zhang to buy it at a low price.

Peng, 25, told the jury it was Jia and Zhang's idea to kidnap them and Jia asked him to drive the couple to the house and help him tie them up but "I made it clear I would not bind the couple with my own hands".

Rope, tape and suitcases were bought at Leeds Market and kept in the boot of his Ford Mondeo ready for the kidnap. He said at one stage he tried to get out of the plan because he knew it was against the law but in the end went ahead with it.

He understood from Jia that after the couple were bound in the house in Holborn Grove they would be moved in the suitcases to the house in Kensington Way, Leeds, where he and Jia were living.

"He said his friend or friends would come and take the couple away."

Peng said Zhang and Jia were already in the house in Holborn Grove when he arrived with the couple and there was talk for about an hour about the takeaway business before the talking stopped and they "controlled" them.

Asked by his counsel Neil Davey QC to explain what he meant, Peng said through an interpreter: "I controlled the male, restrained him. Lu Jia was helping me."

He said Zhang pinned the woman to the floor and she was bound first, before the same happened to the man. He told the jury he played no part in that.

The couple were put into the suitcases which were subsequently put in the car and driven to Kensington Way.

Peng said when he left the house the couple were still alive.

He told Mr Davey he had not killed either of them or played any part in the killing. He will continue his evidence today.

Peng and Jia, 20, both deny the murder of Jin Xue, 38, and Li Xie, 35. Peng had already pleaded guilty to kidnapping both and yesterday Jia was found guilty by the jury on his own admission of kidnapping the couple.

The jury has heard police found the bodies of the couple in separate suitcases in the boot of Peng's Mondeo in the early hours of July 27 after being alerted by friends and relatives.

The hearing continues.