A MAN accused of playing a key role in the murder of a father-of-two blasted to death with a sawn-off shotgun has gone on trial.

Eugert Merizaj helped organise the killing of Hemawand Ali Hussein by luring him to a potential drug cannabis farm site, a jury has heard.

The 30-year-old was found dead in a property on Charterhouse Street, Hartlepool on September 14, 2019, after he walked into a rival gang’s carefully prepared trap.

Teesside Crown Court heard how members of the ‘killing team’ had spent days planning the alleged murder as detectives were able to trace their movements between London, Bolton, and Sheffield.

The Northern Echo: Hemawand Ali HusseinHemawand Ali Hussein

Francis Fitzgibbon QC, prosecuting, said it his case that Mr Hussein was blasted to death at close range as soon as he entered the house.

A trawl through mobile phones belonging to Merizaj and his associates placed them in the area at the time of the killing and CCTV footage captured them running away from the scene just minutes after the fatal shot was fired.

Mr Fitzgibbon told jurors that Merizaj played a key role in getting the shotgun into the terraced property the day before the alleged murder and is the days leading up to it.

He said: “At some point after the killing he fled the country and an international arrest warrant was issued and he was eventually arrested on September 8 in Belgium last year.

“We say he was instrumental in setting up the meetings; he was a leader of the group; he wanted and intended Mr Hussein to be killed or at least suffer really serious bodily harm – he arranged the murder.

“He was a trusted, high-level colleague, he was more than a go-between or driver or extra muscle; he was intimating involved in the planning and executing of the killing of Mr Hussein.

“What he did makes him guilty of murder.”

The prosecution barrister told the jury that three other men had already been found guilty of manslaughter at an earlier trial but reminded members to make a decision on only the evidence they hear during the trial.

Noza Saffari, 39, of Park Lane, Middlesbrough, was jailed for 15 years after he was convicted of manslaughter and cleared of murder.

Qazim Marku, 25, of Maxwell Road, West Drayton, in London, Dorian Pirija, 33, of Trillo Avenue, Bolton, each got 19 years after they were also found guilty of manslaughter and cleared of murder.

A fourth man, Anxelo Xhaferi, was cleared of both charges.

Mr Fitzgibbon said other members of the gang have still not been traced.

Earlier during his opening address, the prosecution barrister said the bag carried away by one of the other gang members following the shooting had a 'striking resemblance' to the bag Merizaj carried to the house the previous day.

"That is something you will have to decide," he tells the jury as he asked them to look at still images from CCTV comparing the two bags.

"We say this is the same bag that Mr Merizaj took into the house on the 13th. Mr Hussein was shot with a sawn-off shotgun. It was never recovered; was it in the bag?" he asks.

Jurors were also shown CCTV footage of Merizaj buying a number of items in a Middlesbrough B&Q, including a large axe, gaffer tape, cable ties and rope.

Those items were recovered from the property after a neighbour called the police after spotting the body in the hall of the house.

Merizaj, of Montague Street, Leicester, denies murder.

The trial continues.

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