Lea Adri-Soejoko suspected that 41-year-old Iranian Rahim Mohammadi was stealing property and money from gardens in Colindale, northwest London
A gardener accused of murdering an 80-year-old woman in an allotment shed has allegedly attacked another plot-holder.
Lea Adri-Soejoko suspected that 41-year-old Iranian Rahim Mohammadi was stealing property and money from gardens in Colindale, north London.
Mohammadi is accused of strangling Mrs Adri-Soejoko with a lawnmower cord and leaving her body in a locked shed at the site on 27 February last year.
Two days later fellow plotholder Azim Suleman told police at the scene that Mohammadi was the only person at the allotments that the victim did not like, the Old Bailey heard.
Mr Suleman, 57, said: ‘She liked all of us except a Kurdish Iranian man called Rahim. She was saying Rahim was crazy and she was scared of him too much.
‘I do not know all the reasons but she said Rahim had keys for the shop and storage and items and money was missing and except Rahim no one else had access. She said Rahim was crazy and she was frightened.’
Mr Suleman told the court he was initially friends with Mohammadi because they both came to the UK from Iran.
But in 2016 Mohammadi attacked him after he told an Italian plotholder that Mohammadi had stolen vegetables from the allotment.
Mr Suleman said: ‘He pushed me from behind and threw me. I fell on top of the pots. The Italian man came and pulled us apart. If it had not been for the Italian man I would have been at greater danger.’
Mohammadi then apologised repeatedly and gave him a cup of tea, the court heard.
Mr Suleman claimed that he feared for his life when Mohammadi launched another violent attack more than a month later.
Mohammadi (pictured, in custody) is accused of strangling Mrs Adri-Soejoko with a lawnmower cord and leaving her body in a locked shed at the site on 27 February last year
‘He was in an angry mood, I told him to go away. He picked me up, lifted me up and knocked me against the edge of the table by the doorway.
‘He pounded me on the ground, I was shouting help, help help. He placed his right leg on my chest, with his left hand he was covering my mouth.
‘My eyes were building out and I felt I was dying. Eventually he calmed down and it was as if God tried to help me.’
After the attack, Mohammadi ‘started crying like a child’ and begged for forgiveness, the court heard.
Mr Suleman said he was not at the allotment on the day of the murder.
The court has heard Mohammadi called Mrs Adri-Soejoko a ‘f****** bitch’ during a meeting of the Allotment Association in September 2016 (pictured, the allotment)
The court has heard Mohammadi called Mrs Adri-Soejoko a ‘f****** bitch’ during a meeting of the Allotment Association in September 2016 after she told him to shut up.
She was last seen alive leaving her home 100 yards away from the allotments between 2.30pm and 3pm on a rainy Monday 27 February last year.
Her body was found in the padlocked mower shed next to the allotment office at 2.33am.
The prosecution claim Mohammadi strangled Mrs Adri-Soejoko with ‘cold-blooded deliberation’ to stop her complaining after he beat her up during a row.
She suffered bruising to her arms, left wrist, left shoulder, right hand and left knee, bruising and abrasions to the face, a fracture of the spine at the base of the neck and two fractures to the fifth and ninth ribs on the left side.
Mohammadi, from Bethnal Green, east London, denies murder.
The trial continues.
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