Four jailed over Tomasz Samel’s death, a fifth given a suspended term
Two men got life and two more 22 and 23 years for the 2019 petrol attack on Tomasz Samel in Birmingham; a woman received a suspended sentence.
By
Rhys Vaughan
Four men are now behind bars for the death of Tomasz Samel, a 45-year-old father of two who was tortured, soaked in petrol and set on fire in 2019, and a fifth defendant has received a suspended sentence. BBC News and WalesOnline both report the sentencing hearing at Birmingham Crown Court, where Mr Justice Wall spoke of a “truly horrific series of events”.
In brief
- BBC News and WalesOnline both report the sentencing hearing at Birmingham Crown Court, where Mr Justice Wall spoke of a “truly horrific series of events”.
- He said both had money riding on the missing cigarettes and a reason to punish the man they blamed, and that both travelled to Poland after the goods disappeared, which he saw as part of the planning.
- According to BBC News and WalesOnline, the CPS said Wooden was caught in the Dominican Republic while using a false identity, and was extradited from there before the six-week trial began.
How the case began
According to BBC News, the trail leads back to a customs raid in February 2019. HM Revenue and Customs seized a haul of counterfeit and illicit tobacco, brought into Britain from Poland, at a unit Samel rented in Aston, Birmingham. WalesOnline, which says the court heard evidence about the seizure, gives 22 February as the date, and identifies the street as Elkington Street.
Samel was a member of an organised crime group and was wanted under an international arrest warrant, BBC News reports. It says three men claiming to be from Interpol abducted him from his home in Handsworth on 27 March 2019, drove him to the Liverpool area and attacked him over the loss of cigarettes valued at £1m. WalesOnline says the aim was to teach him “a lesson”.
The attack and Samel’s death
The judge told the court that Samel had been stripped and left seated and defenceless before petrol was poured over him and he was set on fire, BBC News says. Because of his burn injuries, the judge added, it was impossible to establish how he had been treated before that moment.
He was then left in a remote part of Lancashire. BBC News reports that he managed to reach a house in the village of Bickerstaffe and ask for help, while WalesOnline puts his knock on the door at 11.10pm and says he was given water. Samel was brought to Whiston Hospital in Prescot and died there on 21 June 2019. Describing the weeks in between, the judge said: “The level of his suffering between the time at which the injuries were inflicted and his death is difficult to imagine.”
What the judge told the defendants
WalesOnline sets out the judge’s remarks to the two men he called organisers, Neil Jones and Tobiasz Kozlowski. He said both had money riding on the missing cigarettes and a reason to punish the man they blamed, and that both travelled to Poland after the goods disappeared, which he saw as part of the planning. He then told them: “I am sure that the two of you intended that Mr Samel would die,”
The same report quotes his reasoning. A man meant only to be injured would have been taken back to Birmingham, he said, but the van used to reach Liverpool was disposed of and the kidnappers were sent away without being asked to wait. He also noted that fire cannot be controlled with any precision, and described Samel as “naked and outnumbered” when he was set alight.
On Kevin Wooden and Kye Arthur, WalesOnline says the judge accepted that they had been recruited and paid to pose first as Amazon delivery drivers and then as law enforcement officers so that Samel could be seized. Their manslaughter convictions, he said, showed they knew violence awaited Samel once they had handed him over. BBC News adds that the judge said a third person, still unidentified, was also paid for the kidnapping.
Who received which sentence
| Defendant | Verdict or conviction | Sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Neil Jones | Murder, plus conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm; earlier admitted manslaughter, plus conspiracy to kidnap and to falsely imprison | Life, minimum 34 years |
| Tobiasz Kozlowski, 38, Kirkby, Merseyside | Murder, plus conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm; earlier admitted conspiracy to kidnap and to falsely imprison | Life, minimum 33 years |
| Kevin Wooden, 46, Banbury, Oxfordshire | Manslaughter; earlier admitted conspiracy to kidnap and to falsely imprison | 23 years |
| Kye Arthur, 35, Bristol | Manslaughter; earlier admitted conspiracy to kidnap and to falsely imprison | 22 years |
| Sandra Kozlowska, 38, Kirkby, Merseyside | Assisting an offender | Three years, suspended for three years |
WalesOnline says the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed the minimum terms, and that after more than 11 hours of deliberation in August, jurors unanimously found Jones and Kozlowski guilty of murder. Wooden and Arthur were cleared of murder and of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. The two reports differ on Jones’s age, so it is not given here.
Kozlowska is Kozlowski’s wife. BBC News reports that she was convicted of assisting an offender, namely helping him evade detection, hiding evidence and moving money. WalesOnline adds that she moved the money through bank accounts on his behalf, and that the judge called her efforts “persistent and varied”, saying they let him evade justice for some time.
Inquiries in eight places
The police investigation reached well beyond the Midlands. BBC News lists enquiries in Colombia, Mexico, France, Greece, the Dominican Republic, Poland, Scotland and Wales, where it says the gang had operated or fled after the kidnap. Wales is named only in that list: neither report ties the case to north Wales or gives any detail of what happened there.
According to BBC News and WalesOnline, the CPS said Wooden was caught in the Dominican Republic while using a false identity, and was extradited from there before the six-week trial began. Hannah Sidaway, a roving liaison prosecutor at the CPS, told WalesOnline: “This case shows what can be achieved when prosecutors and law enforcement work together across borders.” She credited Eurojust and partners in the Dominican Republic, Greece and Poland for helping to secure evidence.
Featured image. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Crown_Court,_Dalton_Street,_Birmingham_(geograph_6964917).jpg. Credit: Robin Stott. License: CC BY-SA 2.0.
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