The Texaco garage in Maidstone Road, Chatham, where murder suspect Danai Muhammadi is said to have filled a fuel container

by Dan Bloom

A triple murder suspect made a "gaffe" by insisting he bought petrol for his friend's car at 2am rather than start a blaze - when the vehicle ran on diesel, a court heard today.

Danai Muhammadi claimed he bought the fuel for friend Farhad Mahmud's vehicle rather than to start a fatal fire that killed his wife and toddler son.

Prosecutor Mark Dennis QC told the car salesman: "I'm going to suggest you are a complete fantasist."

The claim came on Muhammadi's sixth and final day in the witness box at the Chatham Hill murder trial.

The 24-year-old (pictured left) filled a petrol can and a garden sprayer at the Texaco garage in Maidstone Road, Chatham - 20 minutes before a blaze gutted his in-law's home two miles away last September 10.

Prosecutors say he squirted fuel through the letterbox in spite after his wife Melissa Crook, 20, a former pupil at Gillingham's Upbury Manor school, left him.

She died with her 15-month-old son Noah and father Mark, 49.

Muhammadi said he bought the petrol for his friend and fellow defendant Farhad Mahmud, whose Vauxhall Astra had run out of fuel.

Mr Dennis said: "Can I tell you the problem about the fuel? You bought over seven litres of petrol. The Astra ran on diesel."

"That's correct," Muhammadi said, "I made a mistake."

The court heard Muhammadi had even bought the Astra for Mahmud - and Mahmud was with Muhammadi when he bought the fuel that night.

"So who knew as you were selling it on to him that the car ran on diesel?" Mr Dennis asked.

"I knew, he knew," Muhammadi replied.

"So why did you put petrol into the can for a car you knew took diesel?" Mr Dennis asked.

"My brain is not a computer," Muhammadi said.

Mr Dennis said: "You have made rather a gaffe, haven't you, in your attempt to add fact and fiction."

Muhammadi, of Britannia Street, Coventry, denies murdering Melissa, Noah and Mark and attempting to murder Melissa's brother Bohdan, 22, and mother Amanda, 50, who escaped the fire.

He said two men threatened to burn down the Crook home of more than 20 years in Chatham Hill unless Muhammadi gave them £5,000.

Mr Dennis said: "This is nonsense, isn't it?"

"It's not nonsense," he replied, "your thinking is different than my thinking, I didn't think the way you want me to think."

Muhammadi also claimed Mark Crook asked him to beat up an enemy of his.
Mr Dennis said: "I'm going to suggest, Mr Muhammadi, you are a complete fantasist."

"No it's not [fantasy]," he replied, "it's true and it's fact."

Mark Crook (left), his daughter Melissa and her toddler son Noah were killed in a house fire

Muhammadi said Melissa told him not to tell police about the blackmailers.
Mr Dennis said: "I suggest, Mr Muhammadi, this is pure fiction."

Muhammadi closed six intense days in the witness box this afternoon by telling the jury: "It's very difficult for me. I still can't believe it."

He added: "I wish to die."

Muhammadi, his new girlfriend Emma Smith, 21, of Barley Lea, Coventry, and Mahmud, 35, of Fernhill Road, Maidstone, deny three counts of murder. They also deny the attempted murders of Melissa's mother Amanda Crook and brother Bohdan.

The trial continues.