Murder victim’s family quit violent UK weeks after arriving

RELATIVES of a Romanian man murdered just weeks after moving to the UK have left Britain because it is too dangerous, they said yesterday.

Thugs chased, cornered and stabbed Beniamin Pieknyi, 21, as he walked through an east London shopping centre with a friend.

His brother Mihael said the family are struggling to deal with what happened. He said: “We are in shock. My mother doesn’t sleep and my sister Iulia, does not want to come back and live in this country.

“To us as a family, London is seen as a dangerous place because of what happened to my brother.”

Iulia said: “I’ve come to realise that terrible things can happen in the blink of an eye and if you say the wrong thing to the wrong person, you could end up dead. “It took a while to accept the truth and when I did, my entire life crumbled around me. I had no drive any more – my work, my house were not important any more.”

Her family lived together in Milton Keynes, but Iulia and Mihael have moved back to Romania.

She spoke out as the three killers of her brother were yesterday sentenced for a total of 50 years. On March 20, Beniamin was travelling to Stratford in east London to meet friend Alexander Suciu, 25, when he was attacked at a Subway takeaway.

Ukrainian Valdyslav Yakymchuk, 23, who had been in the UK for just two years, admitted murder. The Old Bailey heard how he plunged a knife into Mr Pieknyi’s chest despite onlookers begging him to back off. Kevin Duarte, 19, and Moses Kasule, 20, were found guilty of manslaughter. Alexis Gabriel Da Costa Varela and Mario Zvavamwe, both 19, were convicted of violent disorder.

Detective Inspector Ian Titterrell, said: “Beniamin and his friend were entirely innocent.

“They had every right to go about socialising with each other in peace and had done nothing at all to deserve the ire of their aggressors.”