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Colchester murder accused says flatmate demanded sex before stabbing
- By Peter Walker
- BBC News, Essex
Image source, Richard Smith/BBC
The pair lived in a flat in Haven Road in Colchester, close to the scene where Mr Sheikha was found dead
A shop worker accused of murdering his flatmate has said the victim threatened to kill him if he did not have sex with him.
Bako Azad Sheikha, 22, died in Colchester in September last year.
A trial has been told his friend Rakar Rahimi stabbed him, stole his car and money, ran him over and tried to flee the country.
Giving evidence at Chelmsford Crown Court, Mr Rahimi suggested he acted in self defence.
The 23-year-old said the pair took cocaine at their flat in Haven Road on the night of September 11 when he “noticed a change in [Mr Sheikha’s] behaviour”.
“He took a knife and said if you don’t have sex with me I will attack you and kill you,” Mr Rahimi told jurors, speaking via an interpreter.
“I said ‘no way that will happen’ I did not like it.”
Image source, Richard Smith/BBC
Bako Azad Sheikha had an estranged wife and child in the UK
Prosecutors said Mr Rahimi led My Sheikha by knifepoint out of the flat in the early hours of the morning, drove the pair to nearby Distillery Lane in the victim’s Nissan Qashqai, before stabbing him and running him over.
Mr Sheikha, who had an estranged wife and child in the UK, died from a single stab wound to the heart.
Mr Rahimi crashed the Qashqai at farmland near Tiptree before buying a new £700 iPhone and sim card with the victim’s money the next day in Ipswich, the prosecution said.
He was arrested hours later on suspicion of murder at Dover in Kent.
‘Terrified and frightened’
Giving evidence on Thursday, Mr Rahimi claimed after being threatened, he asked Mr Sheikha to drive him to a barber shop he had access to so he could sleep there.
“I had an argument with Bako and said I do not want to stay there anymore,” he said.
Jurors were told they rowed over their mobile phones that night and discussed inviting a woman to the flat.
Mr Rahimi insisted it was Mr Sheikha who drove the car – before pulling over in Distillery Lane to look for his mobile phone – but at that point attacked him with a knife.
The scuffle spilled into the street and Mr Rahimi said he jumped into the driver’s seat and left the victim behind.
He claimed he spotted blood on his hand as he grabbed the steering wheel.
Asked why he left the victim before trying to flee the UK, he said he was “panicking and distressed” and was “terrified and frightened of the police”.
Mr Rahimi, of Wellington Street, Ipswich, denies murder. The trial continues.
