Rapper tracked down and shot dead in ‘revenge attack after murder acquittal’
Tamba Momodu, 20, was shot six times at point-blank range as he sat in a car outside a gym, Stafford Crown Court heard.
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A rapper was shot dead as he sat in a car in a “cold-blooded execution” as part of a revenge attack three years after he was cleared of murder, a court has heard.
Tamba Momodu, 20, known as Teerose, was shot six times at point-blank range with a “powerful” 9mm handgun on October 13 2020 as he was about to go the gym in Telford, Shropshire, with two friends.
Stafford Crown Court heard Mr Momodu had moved from north London to Telford with his family in 2018 to start a new life after he was acquitted at the Old Bailey of murdering 19-year-old Abdullahi Tarabi, a rapper known as Teewiz who died after being stabbed in an alleyway in Northolt in April 2017.
Prosecutor allege Mr Momodu was “stalked” and tracked down by Tarabi’s older brother and cousin who were intent on revenge.
Mahamud Tarabi, 32, and Ahmed Karshe, 30, who are both on trial for Mr Momodu’s murder, alongside Deria Hassan, 32, and Merje Ngoy, 24, are said to have found the victim’s new location after he was jailed in October 2019 for possession with intent to supply drugs and his new address was published in the press.
Opening the Crown’s case, prosecutor James Curtis KC said a number of trips, starting on September 2 2020, were made to the Telford area in different cars, 11 of those being “reconnaissance” before four unsuccessful attempts to carry out the killing were made.
It was on their 16th visit to Telford that they finally “ambushed” Mr Momodu and “singled him out for death” as he sat in the passenger seat of a friend’s Renault Megane in the car park at Bridges Business Park in Horsehay outside the Fitness Factory gym.
Mr Momodu’s friend had unknowingly parked his vehicle next to a Skoda Karoq on false plates that had been stolen from London in July 2020 and had at least two people inside wearing high-visibility tabards, one of whom exited the vehicle and carried out the shooting, with bullets passing through the victim’s back, neck, his heart and his left lung.
Mr Curtis said the fatal attack was “choreographed” and “meticulously planned and carried out with military precision”, with Mr Momodu shot through the car window, as he fell out of the door and again as he lay on the ground dying.
He said: “No-one could ever say it was self-defence – it was deliberate and he never stood a chance.
“It was no accident [the killer] had moved to Tamba Momodu’s side of the car and no accident the others in the car were untouched.”
Later that night, the Skoda Karoq was torched in a remote car park close to The Wrekin beauty spot in Telford, where earlier that day an Audi A5 had been parked ready to take the killers away from the area.
The court was told efforts to find Mr Momodu started as early as January 2019, when Google Maps screenshots were found on Tarabi’s phone circling the victim’s new address.
A phone belonging to Tarabi had also made searches for different areas of Telford, including Summercroft, the road where Mr Momodu was living, in July 2020.
When Mr Momodu was released from prison for the drugs offences in August 2020, he had become a “moving target instead of being behind prison walls”, Mr Curtis told the jury.
On the first reconnaissance trip to Telford on September 2 2020, visits were made to Mr Momodu’s gym, his address and the car park where the Skoda was later set alight.
Karshe, of no fixed address, Hassan, of Ferrymead Avenue in Greenford, London, Tarabi, of Whiteleys Parade in Hillingdon, London, and Ngoy, of no fixed address, all deny murder.
Hussain has pleaded guilty to arson, while the other three deny the same charge.
All four defendants sat in the dock at Stafford Crown Court on Monday and listened to proceedings through headphones and flanked by three dock officers.
In a tribute released after his death, Mr Momodu’s family described him as “a smiley charismatic young man who would light up any room he entered”.
The trial, expected to last at least eight weeks, continues.