Murder phone evidence challenged

Mr Chenia had served a prison sentence for drug offences

A drug dealer accused of murdering his boss has said a mobile phone placing him at the scene had been stolen.

Shokat Chenia, 45, was found stabbed to death in his burning Mercedes in Nottingham on 4 October 2007.

Nottingham Crown Court has heard phone records placed the device, owned by Carl Fowler, 36, from Leicester, close to where the body was found.

But Mr Fowler, who denies murder, has said it was stolen by two men during a robbery just before the murder.

Mr Chenia, who had eight children and lived in Leicester, was involved in the distribution and supply of class A drugs and in 2005 was jailed for drugs offences, the court had heard.

Lost cocaine

He was released in the summer of 2007.

The prosecution has claimed Mr Fowler stabbed him 16 times in a dispute over money, before driving his body from Leicester to Nottingham in an effort to cover his tracks.

It also said records showed Mr Fowler's phone was used close to where the burning car was found in Woolaton.

But Mr Fowler said his phone was stolen by two men who had attacked him 10 days earlier after he lost £20,000 of drugs.

The court heard the two unnamed men worked for 34-year-old Matthew Barker, who supplied Mr Fowler with pure cocaine to turn into crack cocaine.

Mr Barker, of no fixed abode, has admitted two charges of assisting an offender.