Trio cleared of murdering ‘gentle giant’ with converted pistol

Three men have been cleared by an Old Bailey jury of murdering a ‘gentle giant’ after he was shot dead with a converted blank firing gun. Sebastiaan James-Kraan, 20, was gunned down with a Turkish Ekol Gediz pistol which had been converted to fire live bullets. Top-venting blank firers (TVBFs) had been legal to buy in the UK without a licence but tests by the National Crime Agency showed they can be readily converted into lethal firearms. There was an…