Shot through the heart - Telford murder victim 'never stood a chance', jury told as details emerge

Tamba Momodu, aged 20, was gunned down outside The Fitness Factory at Bridges Business Park in Horsehay, Telford on October 13, 2020.

A jury at Stafford Crown Court was told that Mr Momodu, also known as Teerose, was “mercilessly” shot in “cold blood” in an act of retribution for killing Abdullahi Tarabi in Northolt, London in 2017. Mr Momodu was tried and acquitted for the killing in 2018.

Mr Tarabi’s brother Mahamud Tarabi and cousin Ahmed Karshe are two of four men standing trial for Mr Momodu’s murder.

James Curtis KC, prosecuting, told how a plan was hatched to murder Mr Momodu on October 6 outside the gym, but they missed him by 40 minutes.

However, a week later on October 13, the “execution was tragically completed”.

Mr Curtis described how Mr Momodu was sitting in the front passenger seat of his friend Diandre Henry’s Renault Megane when they arrived at the gym at around 11.40am.

By chance, Mr Henry parked in the next space to a Skoda Karoq, from which a “male in high-vis” got out, walked around to the Megane’s passenger side and fired a shot through the window at Mr Momodu.

The murder weapon was a 9mm Luger pistol, from which bullets went through Mr Momodu’s heart and one of his lungs. He also suffered injuries to his hand and his neck.

The Skoda then sped out of the car park as Mr Momodu lay dying. 

He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics at 12.41pm. 

Mr Henry and another man in the Megane fled unharmed.

“He never had a chance,” Mr Curtis told the jury. 

“It was no accident that he (the shooter) moved to his (Mr Momodu’s) side of the car.”

Mr Curtis also took the jury through a series of trips made from London to Telford by all four defendants in which visits were made to Mr Momodu’s home address in Summercroft, Donnington, the murder scene, the Forest Glen car park next to The Wrekin where the Skoda was found torched and Wellington Road, Horsehay, where the Skoda had been parked in preparation to be used  for the killing.

He said Mr Momodu joined The Fitness Factory gym on September 1, 2020, and the very next day Tarabi made his first “recon” trip to Telford and some of those locations.

Phone cell tower “pings” placed the defendants phones on some of the trips, while ANPR cameras tracked the journeys of several vehicles used for journeys to Shropshire, including a white Toyota IQ which was written off in a crash involving Tarabi and Karshe in Warwick, a Volkswagen T-Cross which was used for a number of journeys and had Tarabi and Karshe’s DNA in, an Audi A5 which Tarabi was using when arrested at Tebay and the Skoda, which, Mr Curtis said, was used during the murder.

Mr Curtis also told how an article in a Welsh newspaper in 2019 about Mr Momodu and Mr Henry getting custodial sentences for drug dealing led to Mr Momodu’s address becoming public knowledge.

“That may well have got the juices flowing,” Mr Curtis suggested, saying that’s when Tarabi’s “examination” of Mr Momodu’s whereabouts began.

The following year, Mr Momodu was released from custody and made an Instagram post saying: “It’s good to be home.” The post was shared to the online forum website Reddit.

Ahmed Karshe, aged 30 and of no fixed abode; Deria Hassan, aged 32 and of Ferrymead Avenue, Greenford, London; Mahamud Tarabi, aged 32 and of Whiteleys Parade, Uxbridge; and Merje Ngoy, aged 24 and whose address was given as HMP Hewell, all deny murder. 

Hassan has pleaded guilty to a charge of arson, relating to the Skoda. 

Karshe, Tarabi and Ngoy each deny arson.

The trial continues.