Quarmar Mirza
March 2003
London, England

Minicab driver killed by stranger
By Paul Cheston

This is London
Evening Standard Courts Correspondent
29 November 2004

An illegal Albanian immigrant stabbed to death a defenceless
father of five on a petrol station forecourt, the Old Bailey heard
today.

His victim, minicab driver Quamar Mirza, was a stranger and
described as a hard-working, religious family man.

The mentally disturbed knifeman ran home and bit his girlfriend,
saying he wanted to drink her blood because his mouth was dry, the
court was told. He was released by police that night when she
refused to press charges, only to threaten another woman in the
street.

Mark Gjoni pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of
diminished responsibility.

He was sent to Broadmoor mental hospital indefinitely after being
diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and a "grave and immediate
danger to the public".

The Common Serjeant of London, Peter Beaumont, told Gjoni he had
"taken the life of a man who was just going about his business".

Gjoni, real name Besnik Kume, 37, had been in Britain less than
nine months before he stabbed Mr Mirza in Cricklewood in March last
year.

He had entered Britain on a false passport after serving two-and-a-
half years in prison in his homeland for stabbing another man.
Since coming to Britain with his Romanian girlfriend, Katrina
Gaspar, he had not found work. He spoke little English.

On the day before the stabbing he had complained of being
depressed because he missed his family and friends in Albania and
people in London had accused him of being scruffy.

In the early hours of the morning he went to the service station
in Cricklewood Broadway to buy cigarettes, carrying a kitchen knife
with a seven- inch blade.

Richard Horwell, prosecuting, said: "Mr Mirza drove into the
petrol station which, as a local minicab driver, he used regularly.
As he filled his car with petrol, Gjoni walked to the forecourt,
bought his cigarettes, approached Mr Mirza from behind, turned him
around and stabbed him forcibly in the stomach so the handle broke
and the blade remained embedded in his victim."

Mr Mirza was taken to the Central Middlesex Hospital where he was
pronounced dead from the stomach wound. A post mortem showed that
Gjoni had rained a series of blows on his victim.

Running home, Gjoni told Miss Gaspar "he wanted to bite her and
drink her blood because his mouth was dry". said Mr Horwell. When
he grabbed her and bit her, she called police and he was arrested,
but officers did not know about his earlier victim.

When Gjoni was released he followed a woman, Simone Ambaye, as she
walked down Cricklewood Lane in the early hours.She took refuge in
a pizza store and rang police. As officers approached him he
produced a knife but dropped it on command.

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