LANSIQUOT: CALL CENTRE WORKER JAILED FOR AT LEAST 20 YEARS FOR FRIEND’S MURDER

A call centre worker who stabbed his friend to death in a ‘horrifyingly savage’ attack in the victim’s home was jailed for life today (Weds).

Dad-of-five Charles Lansiquot, 42, repeatedly knifed 54 year-old Ibrahim ‘Abs’ Kledat in the chest and back while high on a cocktail of drink and drugs.

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

He was unanimously convicted of murder after a two-week trial.

Jailing him for life, with a minimum term of 20 years, Judge Timothy Pontius QC said: ‘It is impossible for the jury and I to know precisely what led you to attack and kill Ibrahim Kledat and to do so in such a horrifyingly savage way.

‘You intended at the time not merely to hurt Mr Kledat very badly, but specifically to kill him. For what reason I cannot tell, but the number of wounds you inflicted to his front and back in a frenzied flurry of blows points to nothing else.’

He added: ‘Whatever you precise state of intoxication you were sufficiently alert to the need to do anything you could to prevent the police from identifying Mr Kledat’s murderer.’

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 fire and smoke, was covered in soot and some parts of it were still smoldering.

Lansiquot and Mr Kledat, who had been friends for a number of years, had smoked crack cocaine and cannabis together that night before the body was found.

The killer had also been drinking super-strength 8.4% lager for most of the day.

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’.

Before handing himself Lansiquot was able to dispose of his blood stained clothes, which have never been found.

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.

Born in Hammersmith, west London, Lansiquot spent 20 years living in Hull where his five children, aged six to 22, still live.

He had moved back to London to look for work and at the time of the murder was a call centre worker at Careline Services, based in Chiswick, west London.

The court heard Mr Kledat was a ‘runner’ 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