Telford murder victim shot outside gym was tracked down by killers after drug conviction revealed his address, a court has been told
A 20-year-old rapper was shot through the heart at “point blank range” after a conviction for drug dealing revealed his new location to his would-be killers, a jury has heard.
Tamba Momodu was shot dead outside The Fitness Factory at Bridges Business Park in Horsehay, Telford on October 13, 2020.
A jury already heard this week that Momodu, also known as Teerose, was killed in “cold blood” in a “revenge attack” after being acquitted on the grounds of self-defence of the murder of Abdullahi Tarabi in Northolt, London in 2017 - brother and cousin to two of the defendants.
Mahamud Tarabi, 33, his cousin Ahmed Karshe, 31, of no fixed abode, as well as Deria Hassan, 33, of Greenford, London, of Whiteleys Parade, Uxbridge, and Merje Ngoy, 25, of no fixed abode, all deny murder and arson.
All four men are being tried at Leicester Crown Court sitting at Loughborough Magistrates court after a previous trial at Stafford Crown Court was halted last year.
In the second day of their re-trial, Mr James Curtis KC told the jury on Wednesday that Tamba Momodu had fled to Telford with his family following his acquittal at the Old Bailey in 2018.
He said both Momodu and Abdullahi Tarabi had been in rival gangs in London and that Tarabi's brother and cousin along with other members of "the group", had decided "to take the law into their own hands after thinking that justice had failed them".
But he said they did not know where Momodu was until he had got involved in drug dealing in Telford with a man called Diandre Henry, who had been in the car with Momodu when he was shot dead
The court heard that the pair had been convicted in October 2019 after being found in possession of more than £2,000 of cocaine and MDMA, found down Momodu's trousers as they were sat in a car.
Mr Curtis told jurors that a Welsh news media report on the two men’s conviction and jailing contained Momodu's home address in Donnington, Telford.
A screenshot of a Google Earth picture of the address was later found circled on Mahamud Tarabi’s phone after it was seized by police investigating another matter.
But Momodu was not tracked down by the four men until after his release from prison in 2020, the court was told, when he began posting on social media, firstly announcing it was “good to be home” then on September 1, 2020, when he posted a picture of himself in Fitness Factory gym in Telford, having just joined.
“Almost immediately after learning that, in fact on the very next day on September 2, we start to see trips being made to Telford,” said Mr Curtis.
He had already told the court that the four defendants made 16 trips to the Shropshire town in total, using various cars, including taking a stolen Skoda Karoq, described as “the murder car”, which they left at side road in Wellington where it wouldn't raise suspicion.
He said on three unsuccessful attempts to murder Momodu the Skoda entered the Bridges Business Park where CCTV picked it up “lying in wait” for their victim at the back of their car park.
But it wasn’t until October 13, and the fourth attempt, when Momodu turned up at the gym as they waited.
Mr Curtis said there were two men in the Skoda Karoq, “a driver and the gunman” both wearing “high-visibility tabards” who waited for 40 minutes.
Then at midday, Momodu arrived in the passenger seat of a Renault Megane, with driver Diandre Henry and another friend, Callum Waite, sat in the back.
The car parked next to the Skoda at the back of the car park “in all innocence” said Mr Curtis.
“Before they had time to get out of the car, a man in an an orange tabard gets out of the Skoda and went to the passenger side of the Renault,” Mr Curtis said.
He said the gunman fired six shots in “quick succession”, blasting through the window and hitting Momodu before the man jumped back in the Skoda which “made off fast” out of the business park, before being found burnt out back at a car park near the Wrekin. The other two men in the Renault were left unhurt.
He added that paramedics declared Momodu dead at 40 minutes later, while a post-mortem revealed he had suffered multiple gunshot wounds including fatal shots to the heart and lung.
Mr Curtis told the jury that it was not just the man who was “pulling the trigger” that the prosecution was arguing was guilty of murder, but all men in the dock were “equally culpable” and complicit in the killing.
He explained how evidence showed all four men on trial either had a car or a phone linked to them that had been shown to have been traced to trips to Telford ahead of the killing.
The trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks, continues.
