Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
5 ‘murdered in £300k insurance scam’ blast
‘Trio torched shop and did not care about the victims’
FIVE people were murdered when a convenience store was deliberately blown up in a botched insurance scam, a court heard yesterday.
The explosion killed Mary Ragoobeer, 46, sons Shane, 18, and Sean, 17, and Shane’s girlfriend Leah Reek, 18, who were all in the flat above.
Shop worker Viktorija Ijevleva, 22, also died in the blast on February 25 which neighbours thought was a “bomb exploding”.
Business owner Aram Kurd and friends Arkan Ali and Hawkar Hassan are accused of murder, manslaughter and fraud.
They allegedly poured “vast amounts” of petrol into Zabka Polish shop on Hinckley Road, Leicester, before sparking it with the intention of pocketing £300,000 on insurance.
Prosecutor David Herbert QC told Leicester crown court the defendants were motivated by “greed” and did not care about the victims.
Miss Ijevleva, Ali’s girlfriend, had alleg- edly “assisted” them in obtaining insurance. Mr Herbert said: “The defendants thought she knew too much and decided to leave her to die in the explosion. “The devastation that they caused was created with the intention to kill. “They would have known that people were in the flat above the shop at the time, it was early on a Sunday evening. “That fact simply did not bother these defendants one bit.”
Scotty Ragoobeer, 15-yearold brother of Shane and Sean, was rescued from the rubble and survived. Passer-by Thomas Lindop, 56, was seriously injured.jurors were told Ali, Hassan and Miss Ijevleva bought 26.6 litres of unleaded from a petrol station the day before the blast. CCTV showed Hassan allegedly filling a drum and paying in cash.
Ali, 37, of Oldham, Hassan, 33, of Coventry, and Kurd, 34, of Leicester, deny all charges. The trial continues