A twenty-two year-old Nigerian man, identified as, Gaille Bola, has been convicted over the murder of an eighteen year-old in London.
Bola who killed 18-year-old Meschak dos Santos Cornelio in Enfield on New Year’s Eve, 2017 was found guilty of manslaughter.
The court heard how police were called by London Ambulance Service (LAS) at around 11:30hrs on Sunday, 31 December to an address in Larmans Road, Enfield to reports of a male stabbed.
Meschak was found injured and treated by LAS at the scene before being airlifted to an east London hospital – despite medical treatment he died at 20:28hrs.
When officers attended the scene they found Class A drugs and equipment often used with the cutting and bagging of drugs.
Intelligence also suggested that the victim had been running county lines for Bola, but had decided to set up his own line, which caused friction between the two men.
A witness who was in the property at the time of the arrest told officers that shortly before 11:30hrs, Meschak and a friend were present in the flat cutting and bagging drugs, when three suspects entered the address demanding the ‘drugs line’ phone from Meschak.
Meschak knew the males as he voluntarily buzzed them up via the flat intercom. An attack ensued resulting in him being punched in the head and stabbed in the chest. The suspects made off with the drugs phone, plus other phones, cash and drugs.
The witness recognised the ‘leader’ of this trio of suspects, and the male who punched the victim, to be the main drug dealer in the area named “G” (Gaille Bola).
Bola handed himself into police at Wood Green Police Station at 18:00hrs on Monday, 8 January.
He was charged on Tuesday, 9 January and appeared in custody at Highbury Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, 10 January.
He was found not guilty of murder after a trial at the Old Bailey in July this year, but the jury could not reach a verdict on manslaughter. He was found guilty today, after re-trial, at Blackfriars Crown Court.
