LANSIQUOT: CRACK ADDICT FACES LIFE SENTENCE FOR STABBING

A crack cocaine addict who stabbed friend to death is facing a life sentence today (Tues).

Charles Lansiquot, 41, repeatedly knifed 54 year-old drugs ‘runner’ Ibrahim ‘Abs’ Kledat in the chest and back in his flat.

He then attempted to clean blood from the victim’s body and the walls and floor of the hallway in a bid to cover his tracks.

Police and fire crews found Mr Kledat’s body on the third floor of Lugard House, Bloemfontein Road, Shepherds Bush, west London at 8am on October 20 last year, after a fire broke out in the property.

Prosecutors claimed Lansiquot had deliberatey started the blaze in a desperate bid to hide the killing, the Old Bailey heard.

But Judge Timothy Pontius QC ruled there was no scientific evidence to prove the killer had set it.

Lansiquot was unanimously convicted of murder after a two-week trial. He will be sentenced tomorrow.

The court heard Lansiquot had walked in to Shepherds Bush police station on the day of the killing and claimed he had witnessed two balaclava-clad men kill Mr Kledat, before forcing him to clean-up at gunpoint.

The victim was discovered face-down on his living floor and pronounced dead at the scene.

Prosecutor Rebecca Poulet QC said he had ‘a number of stab wounds’ to his back.

The flat, which had been damaged by flames and smoke, was covered in soot and some parts of it were still smoldering.

Around four hours later Lansiquot told an officer at the front desk of the police station: ‘I saw someone stabbed this morning. I was there.’

He said he had been inside his flat when two balaclava-clad men turned up armed with a gun and attacked the victim.

Lansiquot claimed he was held at gunpoint, stripped to his underwear and had his wallet searched by the intruders.

He then claimed that when the chance arose he made a run for it, jumping over a fence and running home in his pants and socks.

But detectives were unhappy with his ‘disjointed account’ and he was arrested and subsequently charged.

He maintained his story in court, even suggesting Mr Kledat had called out his name as he cried out for help.

‘I was looking down the barrel of a gun,’ he said. I was petrified, I didn’t want to move.

‘He (the gunman) told me not to f***ing move. I didn’t say a word.’

Mrs Poulet desperate Lansiquot ‘invented these two assailants in an attempt to cover up his own responsibility for the killing’.

Heavy-drinking Lansiquot had been staying with his mother in nearby Bathurst House and was a regular visitor at Mr Kledat’s flat to pick up crack cocaine.

Mr Kledat was not a dealer and did not store drugs at his home, but would go out with small amounts of cash given to him by associates to buy crack.

Lansiquot, of Bathurst House in the White City Estate, Shepherds Bush, denied murder.

A charge of perverting the course of justice will lie on file.

ends