A Kosovan asylum seeker who turned himself in for

A Kosovan asylum seeker who turned himself in for murder because he was desperate to stay in Britain said the man he killed ‘wasn’t human’.

Afrim Krasniqi, 19, knifed hostel manager Quadeer Abbas three times in the chest on his 29th birthday.

He fled home to Albania then called police asking if they could arrange his transport back to London, the Old Bailey heard.

Krasniqi admits stabbing Mr Abbas but claims he was acting in self-defence after the manager punched him.

The court heard Krasniqi came to Britain in 1999 and was put up at the hostel in Brocas Close, Swiss Cottage.

He told how he fell out with the manager when he accidentally set fire to some pans in the communal kitchen.

‘Mr Abbas didn’t talk to me once since I burnt the pans,’ the labourer said.

‘I would not describe him as very human.

‘

On the night of the killing he had a friend with him in the kitchen.

‘He sent my friend away.

He started shouting.

I felt embarrassed,’ the refugee said.

When he went up to his room the door was locked and he had to ask Mr Abbas to open it.

Krasniqi admitted he sat in the weights room hitting a dumbell in his hand as he waited for the keys.

He also had a kitchen knife in his waistband which he kept said he kept on him ‘for protection.

‘

The labourer admitted he was in a bad mood but denied wanting to attack the manager.

‘I didn’t want to hit him with the weights bar,’ he said.

In an tearful statement to the police he claimed he was attacked by the Pakistani.

‘He pushed me and hit me and in self defence I stabbed him.

‘

Earlier Detective Sergeant Peter Devlin told the court police had vainly appealed for information about Krasniqi on TV’s Crimewatch after he vanished.

Then in August 2002 he called the police pretending to be a friend of the killer.

‘He told me he knew the whereabouts of Afrim Krasniqi,’ the officer said.

‘He told me he saw him every day.

I asked him for Afrim Krasniqi’s address and his whereabouts but he was very evasive and unwilling to tell me.

The detectives asked why he had called the police and
Krasniqi said: ‘Because I can help you.

‘

The officer asked him if he wanted money and Krasniqi replied: ‘I don’t want money – its me.

‘

‘He said to me I want to come back to England, I don’t want to stay in Albania,’ the officer recalled.

‘He told me he wanted to come back immediately and he had to leave Albania quickly.

‘He wanted to come back as soon as possible.

He asked me if he could arrange his own flight back.

‘

DS Devlin said he would contact the CPS and get back in touch with Krasniqi but when he called again he got a voice mail in Albanian.

Then almost a year later on July 23 he got a call from Krasniqi, who was at a lay-by in Bromley, and the officer went to arrest him.

‘It was a big surprise to me,’ the detective admitted.

Krasniqi, last living in Ladywood Avenue, Petts Wood, Kent, denies murder on September 13, 2001.

The trial continues.

ends