A MURDER trial jury has heard how a man who stabbed to death his former landlord had threatened to kill someone else he said had ruined his life a week earlier.

Pizza shop boss Kourosh Nesvadrani said he took the threat seriously and alerted police after one of his workers, Ahmedreza Fathi, reacted badly to being sacked.

Mr Nesvadrani told Teesside Crown Court that Fathi warned he would kill him and his family.

He also spoke of finding a hit-man to murder his own father in Iran.

Fathi, 22, was furious to have been sacked from the takeaway in Blackhill, near Consett, in March last year, and wanted revenge.

The court heard his work was sub-standard and he had started causing trouble with colleagues – but blamed Mr Nesvadrani for him losing his job and his home.

Fathi moved to Hartlepool soon afterwards, and started living with fellow Iranian national Romano Taddi, who also got him a job at a pizza shop where he worked. Within weeks, however, he was dismissed from that job for arguing with colleagues, and went on to work at two further town centre takeaways and move into a bedsit.

It is alleged he murdered Mr Taddi last July after returning to his home as a lodger, but once again being asked to leave when it emerged that he was gay – a capital offence in Iran.

A fellow bedsit resident, Jamal Baqshahi, told the jury that Fathi once asked him for a knife because he wanted to kill Mr Taddi.

Ali Heydari, the boss of Sorento’s Pizzeria, in Church Street, Hartlepool, also recalled a time when Fathi came in a week before the killing, “shaking and upset”.

Fathi, formerly of Grange Road, Hartlepool, returned to Consett, confronted Mr Nesvadrani, and threatened to kill him and his family, the court heard yesterday.

A week later, 54-year-old divorcee Mr Taddi was found dead at his home in Kimberley Street, Hartlepool, with 14 stab wounds and a total of 67 separate injuries.

Fathi denies murder, and will rely on a defence of diminished responsibility, claiming he was suffering from an abnormality of his mind, the jury has already been told. The trial continues.