'I feared for my life' - Murder suspect claims pizza shop owner attempted assault
A pizza shop worker stabbed his new boss to death after he tried to sexually assault him at knifepoint, he told a jury.
Andrei Ilie, 22, claimed he had not intended to kill 46 year old Masoud Esmailian but had been in fear for his own life.
The victim, who had also been robbed, was discovered by police at his home in Montgomery Walk, West Bromwich, 24 hours later – by which time Ilie had fled the country.
The court heard that the defendant, then 19, was wanted at the time in his native Romania for being part of a gang which attacked and robbed an elderly couple in their home months earlier.
Ilie told Birmingham Crown Court: “When I left Romania, I wanted to leave everything behind me. I never thought of doing what I did in Romania in the UK as well.
"I wanted to become a better person, to change my life and to work.”
Giving evidence in the witness box, Ilie said that Mr Esmailian had offered to give him a lift home after closing the shop in Dudley Road, Ladywood, on the night of August 28, 2015, but instead drove him back to his West Bromwich flat.
He helped to carry a couple of boxes upstairs from the car and accepted the offer of a soft drink and a cigarette, which he thought might have contained drugs because of the smell, the court heard.
He said he repeatedly asked Mr Esmailian when he was going to give him a lift home and was given the same reply: “In five minutes.”
The shop owner left the bedroom where they had been sitting and after a while Ilie went to the doorway and called him, he said.
He then saw his boss coming towards him holding a knife and making slashing movements in the air, cutting the defendant’s forearm with the blade.
Ilie retreated back inside the bedroom and tried to escape through the window but Mr Esmailian grabbed him causing him to lose his balance, he told the jury.
Ilie said he fell onto the bed where the shop owner placed the knife on his back and tried to pull down his trousers.
In the struggle, the knife fell on the floor and Ilie rolled off the bed and grabbed it.
He stabbed Mr Esmailian in the leg as he tried to kick the blade from his grasp and then closed his eyes and pushed the knife into his chest, he told the jury.
Asked why he did not call the police, he said he did not know the number for the emergency services.
He returned to his lodgings in Winson Green and took a coach from Birmingham later that day for Romania.
He was arrested two days after his arrival.
Ilie, of no fixed address, denies murder and robbery.
The trial continues.
