A man has gone on trial accused of a murder which led to West Midlands Police's biggest-ever trawl of CCTV footage, a court heard. Murtaza Nazir was 'gunned down in a hail of bullets' in Bagshaw Road, Stechford. on August 28, 2020, jurors were told. The 26-year-old 'stood no chance' and died at the scene.
Prosecutors said four men in a Seat Leon and Dacia Duster circled the area for half-an-hour before one man from each car got out and fired on Mr Nazir. The two vehicles were then taken to an industrial unit between Herbert Road and Camelot Way in Small Heath to be dismantled.
Akeem Lawrence, aged 30, of Clipston Road, Alum Rock, stands trial at Birmingham Crown Court denying conspiracy to acquire a prohibited weapon in relation to a handgun, murder and perverting the course of justice. The jury was told that two people, Shamrez Khan and Tahir Zaman, were previously convicted of the latter two charges in a separate trial in 2021 while the fourth male had yet to be identified.
Prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee KC, opening the case against Lawrence today, said: "On a Friday in late August 2020 two vehicles sporting false number plates and each containing two occupants, had been circling for about half-an-hour around Inglefield Road and Bagshaw Road in the Stechford area of Birmingham.
"That was the culmination of an extremely carefully-planned murder by the four occupants of those two vehicles. Their target was a local resident. Two men from this four-man crew emerged from each vehicle.
"The drivers remained in the vehicles for their rapid getaway. Each of the men who emerged was carrying a firearm and their victim Murtaza Nazir, who was just 26, was gunned down in a hail of bullets. He stood no chance and died in the street."
The prosecutor said Lawrence was one of the four men but it was not possible to tell who were the drivers and who were the gunmen. Mr Jafferjee continued: "Each was a party to this meticulously-planned and murderous enterprise. Each of them is guilty of murder irrespective of who pulled the trigger because it's a gang at work. It's the equivalent of hunting in a pack, feeding off each other to ensure success with their strength in numbers."
He told the court the Seat and the Dacia had not been recovered as the four-man crew 'knew perfectly well' the vehicles could have contained DNA, fingerprints or hair which could have identified them.
Mr Jafferjee said there was no evidence as to the motive of the killing but he emphasised the prosecution only needed to prove that Lawrence participated in it. He said: "The unrelenting police work combined with a huge trawl of CCTV, the most intense in the history of the West Midlands as it's turned out, had succeeded in identifying not all but some of those involved."
He added: "The biggest mistake made by these men was not anticipating or woefully underestimating the resolve of the West Midlands homicide department to embark on the laborious process of not only tracking the Dacia and Seat from the limited CCTV gathered from homes nearby, then working backwards in time and tracking the first appearance of those two motor vehicles and, as a result, discovering which other vehicles were connected to those vehicles and which human beings were connected to all of them.
"Being disguised in black from head to toe before, during and after the murder was not anything like as foolproof as they imagined it would be."
(Proceeding)
