A digital advertising scholar was knifed to dying by one other undergraduate who stole hashish price £1,000 from him throughout a row inside a corridor of residence, a jury has heard.
Melvin Lebaga-Idubor is alleged to have stabbed 19-year-old Kwabena Osei-Poku within the neck on a avenue close to the College of Northampton’s campus, earlier than fleeing to Paris on a Eurostar service.
Lebaga-Idubor, initially from Barking in east Londonand fellow scholar Ogechi Eke, who’s alleged to have “assisted and inspired” the killing, each deny the homicide of Mr Osei-Poku and possession of a weapon in a public place.
Opening the Crown’s case on Thursday, prosecutor Vanessa Marshall KC claimed the boys, each aged 19, are collectively chargeable for killing Mr Osei-Poku, initially from Peterborough.
Lebaga-Idubor’s 19-year-old girlfriend Zhanae Forbes-Coleman, from Edmonton in north London however who was additionally a first-year scholar on the College of Northampton, denies perverting the course of justice by offering him with a change of clothes and reserving him a taxi to London.
You’ll hear how minutes earlier than the deadly stabbing, these two defendants (Lebaga-Idubor and Eke) stole a big amount of hashish from the deceased
Crown counsel Vanessa Marshall KC
In her opening speech, Ms Marshall informed the courtroom: “It’s the prosecution case that the defendants Mr Eke and Mr Lebaga-Idubor are collectively chargeable for the homicide of Kwabena Osei-Poku on the night of twenty third April, simply off the campus at Northampton College, on New South Bridge Highway.
“He was stabbed not as soon as however twice by Mr Lebaga-Idubor, the deadly damage being a stab wound to the neck.
“Mr Eke was current when the deadly stab wound was inflicted and, the prosecution say, collectively participated within the offence.”
The Crown’s barrister added: “The background to this killing is a dispute about medicine.
“You’ll hear how minutes earlier than the deadly stabbing, these two defendants (Lebaga-Idubor and Eke) stole a big amount of hashish from the deceased.”
After alleging that Lebaga-Idubor was seen holding a folded knife within the kitchen of a corridor of residence the place the sufferer’s girlfriend lived, Ms Marshall stated of Forbes-Coleman: “It’s the prosecution case that she organized to take Mr Lebaga-Idubor a change of clothes to a close-by property, the place he was mendacity low.”
Forbes-Coleman, the jury was informed, is then alleged to have made preparations for Lebaga-Idubor to journey by taxi to London, from the place he travelled by practice to Paris.
Eke, from Enfield in north London, was described in the course of the Crown’s opening speech as “in all probability the preferred drug-dealer on campus”.
Ms Marshall stated Lebaga-Idubor was the principal defendant, having allegedly stabbed the sufferer aspiring to trigger dying or at the least actually severe hurt, whereas she claimed Eke was a “secondary get together” who had “assisted or inspired Mr Lebaga-Idubor from begin to end”.
In the course of the argument in a communal kitchen minutes earlier than the stabbing, Lebaga-Idubor is alleged to have demanded {that a} amount of Californian “wedding ceremony cake” hashish be weighed.
A part of the dispute was filmed by a witness on a cell phone, the courtroom heard, capturing a few of what was stated.
In response to the witness account, Ms Marshall stated, Lebaga-Idubor was heard to say: “That is my strip. What are you doing strutting medicine round right here? Our line is right here.”
The jury was additionally informed the sufferer, identified by the nickname KP, had been suspended or excluded by the college in November or December final yr, however had been allowed again in February this yr.
The motivation for the killing, Ms Marshall stated, was to “scare KB off” from dealing on the college, to steal his medicine, or a mix of each motives.
The trial continues.
