Hartlepool murder victim ‘may have been attacked with axe’ before being shot

Alleged cannabis dealer Hamawand Ali Hussain, 30, was killed inside 25 Charterhouse Street, Hartlepool, on September 14, 2019 after being shot with a shotgun, Teesside Crown Court heard.

On Friday, January 29, the jury heard from Nicola Claire Taylor, a senior forensic scientist, who examined the scene of the murder and two cars alleged to have been used by the killers.

Miss Taylor told the jury that Mr Hussain was found laid in the lounge near to the front window and had suffered terrible head injuries.

She also described how a blood-stained axe was found propped by the bottom of the stairs in the house.

Part of the front window blind was torn and had partially come away from its fixings at the top.

Asked by prosecutor Francis FitzGibbon QC to explain the forensic evidence found on the axe, Miss Taylor said: “In my opinion the findings are most readily explained if Mr Hussain had been struck with the axe, for example as he was moving into the lounge before being shot.”

She added: “There may have been an initial struggle that caused the blind in the window to become torn and partially removed from its fixing.”

Miss Taylor added it is possible someone had hold of Mr Hussain’s left shoulder when he was shot after the DNA of an unidentified male was discovered on the victim’s jacket.

DNA of defendant Qazim Marku, 24, was found on a plastic bottle and cigarette butt found inside the house.

His barrister Nicholas Corsellis QC put it to Miss Taylor: “However the DNA doesn’t assist as to where Qazim Marku was at the time of this shooting.”

Miss Taylor said: “I agree.”

Giving evidence, pathologist Dr Louise Mulcahy said she favoured the fatal injury was the result of a shotgun being fired at close range in a downward direction.

But she added she could not rule out that an axe was also used.

Marku, of Maxwell Road, West Drayton, London, and Noza Saffari, 39, of Park Lane, Middlesbrough; Anxhelo Xhaferi, 24, of Acton Street, Middlesbrough; and Dorian Pirija, 33, of Trillo Avenue, Bolton, deny murder.

The trial continues.

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