A witness in the trial of two York men accused of the grisly murder of a man in York said their intention was simply to “rob the fella”.
The named witness, a friend of one of the accused men, said he was told that Michael Mulvana, 31, plunged a machete or cleaving knife into 26-year-old Indrit Mustafaj.
Mr Mustafaj, from Bradford, was stabbed several times in the leg and to his face at a bedsit in York. He later died of his injuries, a jury at Leeds Crown Court heard.
He and another named man were visitors at the flat of a 35-year-old woman in Vyner Street, off Haxby Road, when two masked men burst in. They were Mulvana and 27-year-old Jobie Tyers. One of them was brandishing a metal bar.
They allegedly attacked all three people inside the bedsit, including the female tenant and the other man who also suffered stab wounds but survived.
Yesterday (11 June), the male witness, who wasn’t present in the flat at the time of the fatal stabbing, gave evidence in court which suggested that Mulvana was the main aggressor and the man who delivered the fatal blow which pierced a major artery in Mr Mustafaj’s thigh.
He said that when he met Tyers following the incident, his friend told him: “I think we might have just killed a guy.”
The witness said that on the night of the attack, Tyers had asked for him a lift to a travellers’ site in Osbaldwick where he was living at the time.
He said that on the way to the site, Tyers, whom he described as a “Jekyll-and-Hyde character”, threw his dirty shoes out of the car but denied that his friend had asked him to get rid of a knife.
He said that Tyers told him that he and Mulvana had arranged to meet up to “tax” Mr Mustafaj at the flat in York.
Tyers had allegedly told the witness that as Mulvana was stabbing Mr Mustafaj, a woman was screaming: “He’s killed him! He’s killed him!”
Tyers had told him that Mulvana had “just gone ballistic, waving the knife around”.
Tyers said he had tried to stop Mulvana and “just wanted to leave” and that it was Mulvana who had stabbed all three people inside the flat.
When asked by Tyers’ barrister Sam Green KC if he had been told that Mulvana was “having none of it and just continued with his ferocious, knife-wielding activity”, the witness replied: “Yes.”
Masked med
Earlier in the trial, prosecutor John Harrison KC said the plan was for Mulvana and Tyers to rob Mustafaj of cash at the ground-floor flat.
On 23 November last year, Mustafaj visited the female tenant. There was another man present.
At about 7.15pm, they were about to leave when the two masked men burst in. Witness reports as to what happened next differ to some extent, but it’s understood that the two intruders saw an unsheathed machete next to Mr Mustafaj.
Tyers is said to have shouted “Watch it!” to Mulvana, then one of the intruders struck Mr Mustafaj on the leg after the victim had allegedly gone for Mulvana with the knife.
It’s thought that the victim fell to the floor after the blow was struck and then one of the intruders – which the prosecution believed to be Mulvana – grabbed the knife and stabbed Mr Mustafaj repeatedly with the weapon.
Mr Mustafaj suffered a fatal wound to the femoral artery in his leg.
A post-mortem confirmed that he died from a stab wound to the right thigh. He also suffered two stab wounds to the eye, a slash or wound to the back of his knee and five lacerations, described as “defensive wounds”, to his hands.
The jury heard that the knife wound that killed him was inflicted with such force that it splintered his femur, one of the strongest bones in the body.
Ambulance staff and doctors tried to save his life by applying tourniquets to his legs to try to stem the flow of blood from the fatal wound, but he was declared dead at York Hospital less than two hours after the attack.
The female tenant suffered cuts and bruises but didn’t seek medical attention. The other male victim was taken to hospital after suffering a broken shin bone and stab wounds to his buttock.
Blood on the back seat
Mr Harrison said although it was the prosecution’s contention that it was Mulvana who was the “main or principal offender” and the first through the door, Tyers “appears to have been a secondary party to the fatal attack on Mr Mustafaj which would not have occurred without (Tyers’) presence, lending Mr Mulvana encouragement and support”.
“The prosecution’s case is that they are both responsible for the attacks on all three victims,” added the prosecuting barrister.
He said that CCTV footage in the area including around the Monks Cross retail park had captured two vehicles “of significance”: a grey Peugeot and a white Vauxhall.
He said that traces of Mr Mustafaj’s blood were found on the back seat of the Peugeot – the same vehicle which Mulvana reportedly drove to the flat.
Police later found a knife in a skip opposite the bedsit in Vyner Street which was “forensically linked” to the alleged murder.
Mulvana and Tyers were tracked down by police and arrested two days after the fatal attack.
Mr Harrison said that, essentially, the two men blamed each other for the attacks including the fatal stabbing.
Mulvana, of Bright Street, off Leeman Road, York, and Tyers, from Gate Helmsley, were jointly charged with murdering and robbing Mr Mustafaj of money and causing grievous bodily harm with intent to the female tenant and the other male at the bedsit.
They denied all the allegations except for Tyers admitting the one count of robbery on the basis that he simply “assisted or encouraged” Mulvana in robbing Mr Mustafaj.
Mr Green KC, for Tyers, said his client didn’t carry out any of the violence.
He said that earlier that day, Mulvana had told Tyers that he was going to rob Mr Mustafaj and wanted Tyers to assist in that robbery “in return for which he promised Jobie Tyers payment”.
He claimed that Mulvana had used violence “far more extreme than anything Jobie Tyers had even contemplated beforehand”.
Nicholas Lumley KC, for Mulvana, claimed that his client was an “unwitting witness to what unfolded in that room” and that it was Tyers who meted out the violence.
“Tyers attacked all three victims. The use of such violence was not something which Mr Mulvana wanted or encouraged.”
He said that after the attacks, Mulvana helped Tyers steal a coat from the flat “and that is the extent of his wrongdoing”. The trial continues.