Residents tried to stop curry boss being hacked to death by ‘swines’

A brave resident told a court how he tried to ‘sound tough’ in a bid to scare off two killers as they hacked a takeaway delivery driver to death.

Abdul Samad, 25, owner of ‘Curry in a Hurry’ was lured to Canonbury, north London, with a bogus takeaway order late in the evening on 21 May 1997.

Before he could even knock on the door at (34) Alwyne Road he was pounced upon by two masked men who chased him down and beat him with a baseball bat before hacking him to death with a meat cleaver.

The address given was that of Lord Falconer, the then Solicitor General and close friend of Tony Blair.

Accused killer Foyjur Rahman, 44, was only extradited from the US to face trial for the murder in January this year.

John Swannell said he intervened after witnessing the attack from his home in nearby Alwyne Villas.

Giving evidence Mr Swannell said: ‘I started to shout and yell, to come down the steps towards them.

‘I said something like “stop you swines”, trying to sound tough. The people who had been beating this person started to run.’

Mr Swannell chased the assailants but lost them amongst bushes in a residential garden – he then returned to the dying man.

He said: ‘I held his hand and spoke to him, he could only murmur before his eyes rolled and he lost consciousness.’

Mr Samad suffered 18 knife wounds, with one doctor describing them as ‘the like of which I have never seen’.

Frances Tookey was also at home on the night of the murder: ‘I was in bed watching Newsnight when I heard a commotion outside.

‘I went to the window to see two men swinging what appeared to be baseball bats at someone on the ground, and I called to my husband to phone the police.

‘The men swaggered down the road when they stopped and turned back to the man on the ground to finish him off. I saw the glint of what I believe to be a knife with a ten inch blade.’

She added: ‘It was scary and shocking. I will always remember [the murder] even though it was nineteen years ago.’

Rahman, who owned his own takeaway shop in Putney, south London, was traced via his DNA found on a scarf left at the scene.

Mr Samad, a married father-of-two, had been called upon by a group of Bangladeshi businessmen in east London to act as an intermediary in a dispute with ‘the Stoke Newington boys’.

In the weeks before the attack he had repeatedly refused to get involved, the Old Bailey heard, despite being threatened with violence.

On the night of the attack, the upmarket street was completely deserted, but many residents came out of their houses when they heard the victim screaming for help.

They saw two men with scarves wrapped around their faces with eye holes cut out chasing Mr Samad down the street and into Alwyn Villas before hacking at him with their cleavers.

He suffered catastrophic injuries and died three hours later in the early hours of the morning on 22 May.

After the attack, the killers fled the scene in the company of two other men, discarding their scarves and one of the cleavers.

One scarf yielded a DNA match of Rahman, jurors were told, while the second matched to fellow curry house owner Mohiuddin Bablu.

Bablu was extradited from Bangladesh in early 2012 and convicted of Mr Samad’s murder in March that year.

Among other injuries, Mr Samda and a gash 4″ wide to the side of his torso.

On 22 May, both Rahman and Bablu drove with a friend to Bablu’s sisters house in Birmingham where they spent the night.

They asked Bablu’s brother-in-law to do an internet search of murders in Islington, while Rahman booked his flights to the US.

One of the two men left behind a jacket that was stained with Mr Samad’s blood, the court heard.

Rahman, formerly of east London, denies murder.

He insists he was not present and had nothing to do with the killing.

The trial continues.