Double murder caught on CCTV, jury hears

A gunman fired eight shots at a car, killing two men, moments after a parked Audi was attacked with a hammer and metal bar, a jury has been told.

Mohammed Maneer Khan, 39, is accused of murdering Duaine Mills, 28, and Syed Zain Ali, 32, in Harrow Street, Wolverhampton, in the early hours of 19 September last year.

Opening the prosecution case at Wolverhampton Crown Court, Michael Burrows KC said CCTV showed a man running towards an Audi A4 and opening fire as its occupants tried to leave the street.

Khan denies two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.

He has admitted fraud after attempting to obtain a passport in a false name.

Burrows KC told the jury that the minute-long attack on Khan's car happened seconds before the shootings in the Whitmore Reans of the city.

It was alleged the damage was linked to an incident a month earlier in Manchester, in which a vehicle was also smashed.

In the moments leading up to the shooting, Mills, Ali and a third man had driven to the scene shortly after 03:00 BST, Burrows said.

He added: "They got out of their car and attacked and damaged another Audi, a black RS6 parked further along Harrow Street.

"They ran back to their car.

"Syed Zain Ali got into the driver's seat. Duaine Mills got into the front passenger seat and [a third man] got into the back.

"Syed Zain Ali started the car and tried to drive away. CCTV shows a man ran along Harrow Street towards them."

Alleging that the gunman was Khan and that he had been, in the days leading up to the killings, driving the Audi RS6, which belonged to someone else, Burrows added: "The man stopped and held up a handgun.

"He fired it eight times at the men in the car.

"The shots killed the two men in the front.

"Their car lurched forward and crashed into the side of a parked van. [a third man], in the back, was not hurt."

Khan, the court heard, was living at an address in nearby Great Hampton Street.

Mills died at the scene of the shooting, having suffered a head wound while Ali suffered an "unsurvivable" brain injury and died five days later.

Addressing the jury, Burrows said: "The gunman did not shoot just anybody at random.

"He shot the people who had just attacked and damaged a car, the black Audi RS6."

The car was damaged after the occupants of the Audi A4 "thought about the incident in Manchester" and decided to cause damage to it, Burrows said.

Two other defendants deny perverting the course of justice in relation to the fraudulent attempt to obtain a passport in the weeks following the shooting.

The trial continues.

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