Pet parrot ‘may have alerted its owner to fatal shooting in his street’

A startled parrot may have alerted its owner to the moment a man in his street was shot in the head, a murder trial has heard.

Hamawand Ali Hussain, 30, was shot with a sawn-off shotgun at an address in Hartlepool, on September 14, 2019.

Eugert Merizaj, 31, from Leicester, denies his murder and is currently on trial at Teeside Crown Court.

On Tuesday, the jury heard how on the day of the alleged murder, David Walker’s parrot suddenly burst out of its cage and started flying around his house, causing him to look out the window.

Mr Walker, who is hard of hearing, told police he didn’t hear anything, but that his pet parrot suddenly reacted to something.

Prosecutor Francis Fitzgibbon QC told the jury: ‘Something startled David Walker’s parrot and it flew out of its cage.

‘Mr Walker looked out of his window – he saw three men running out of no 25; then another man by the white Toyota Hilux parked outside, then a fifth man came out of the house and closed the door.’

Merizaj, who is Albanian, left the country soon after Mr Hussain was killed.

He was arrested in Belgium in September last year and extradited back to the UK to face trial.

Three of Merizaj’s alleged accomplices – Noza Saffari, Dorian Pirija and Qazim Marku – were found guilty of the manslaughter of Mr Hussain, but cleared of murder after a trial in January last year.

Saffari, 40, of Middlesbrough was jailed for 15 years; Pirija, 34, of Bolton, acted as the getaway driver and was jailed for 19 years and Qazim Marku, 26, of West Drayton in London was jailed for 19 years.

A fourth man who stood trial over the murder, Anxelo Xhaferi, 25 from Middlesbrough, was acquitted of all charges.

A further three suspects – Sajmir Dodoveci, Armando Marku and Daniel Kadiu – are all on the run with a warrant issued for their arrest on suspicion of murder.

The prosecution alleges that Kadiu and Merizaj led an Albanian drugs gang that had a disagreement with Mr Hussain who was Kurdish.

On Tuesday, the court heard that Merizaj was allegedly in constant contact with Kadiu, Pirija and Marku and that they met on September 5, to plan the murder, the prosecution claims.

The court was shown CCTV of Merizaj visiting a B&Q in Middlesborough to buy several items including an axe, gloves, cable ties, rope, and stanley blades.

Mr Fitzgibbon told the jury: ‘This wasn’t for DIY – he had something very different in mind.’

The same items were found at the house on Charterhouse Street in Hartlepool, after Mr Hussain’s death.

The prosecution alleges Mr Hussain was ‘blasted to death’ within seconds of walking through the door of the house where he died.

Mr Fitzgibbon told the jury that while Merizaj didn’t pull the trigger on the gun that killed Mr Hussain he ‘was instrumental in setting up the meetings’.

‘He was a leader of the group; he wanted Mr Hussain to be killed – or at least suffer really serious bodily harm – and he arranged the murder,’ he said.

‘He was intimately involved in the planning and executing of the killing of Mr Hussain. What he did makes him guilty of murder.’

The sawn-off shotgun which was used against Mr Hussain – who lived with his partner and two children in Billingham – has never been recovered.

Security footage from a corner shop near the shooting captured one of the men running away from the house with a bag – which the prosecution say contained the weapon.

The prosecution allege Mr Hussain was lured to the house on the pretext of looking at a potential new site for a cannabis farm but the real reason was likely to be a drug debt.

Mr Hussain arrived at the address with £1,000 in his pocket – which was still there when his body was found the next day.

The trial continues.

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