LONDON—A man on trial for murdering a gang member who was stabbed to death on a London street in broad daylight has told the jury he only chased after the victim because he saw others running and he was “curious.”
Donte McCalla, 21, Tristan Bullock, also 21, and Darius Kwakye, 29, all deny murdering Salem Koudou in Brixton, south London, in August 2020.
Bullock’s younger brother, Yaseen, was convicted of murdering Koudou at a previous trial.
The jury has heard that Koudou, a member of the All ‘Bout Money (ABM) gang from Stockwell, drove onto the Angell Town estate in Brixton with two accomplices planning to launch an attack on the rival 150 gang.
After their car crashed and overturned the two other men in the car fled but Koudou, who was armed with an “enormous knife,” stabbed Tyreicke Williams before a group of up to 15 people, several of whom were armed, chased him off the estate.
Koudou was then chased into a cul-de-sac on the other side of the main Brixton Road, where he was surrounded and stabbed to death.
On Thursday, McCalla went into the witness box to give his own version of the events of Aug. 20, 2020.
McCalla said he had been hanging out with a group of friends on the Angell Town estate when they heard a commotion and began seeing people running after someone.
He was asked by his barrister, Jenny Dempster, KC, why he began running.
“I don’t know. I was curious and wanted to find out what was going on,” McCalla replied.
She asked him why he had run across the Brixton Road and down the cul-de-sac.
“Because the people ahead of me ran there and I was curious,” he responded.
McCalla said he knew Tristan Bullock and his brother Yaseen, and another individual in the running group, but did not know Kwakye or any of the others who were in the chasing pack.
He admitted grabbing a Royal Mail trolley outside the sorting office but denied he planned to use it to trap Koudou, who he says he did not know at the time.
‘I Froze ... I Was Shocked’
Dempster asked him what he was thinking at the time.“I froze. I didn’t really know what was going on. I was shocked,” McCalla replied.
He denied seeing any knives in the hands of the people attacking Koudou.
Dempster then asked him why he can suddenly be seen running off on the CCTV footage.
“I saw others running and that triggered me to do the same,” McCalla replied.
He said he went to a shop to buy a drink and spent an uneventful evening afterwards, unaware that anyone had been killed.
McCalla said he thought he had just witnessed “someone being beaten up” and it was only the following day, when he saw the news, that he realised he had witnessed a murder.
Dempster asked him why he did not contact the police to offer information on what he had witnessed.
“I didn’t want to be involved in anything to do with a murder,” McCalla replied.
He was not arrested and charged with murder until almost 15 months later.
Under cross examination by junior prosecutor, Jonathan Polnay, McCalla was asked if he heard people say “wet him”—meaning “stab him”—as they chased Koudou.
McCalla denied hearing it but added, “I’m not saying it wasn’t said.”
Polnay asked him, “You were part of a plan, on the spur of the moment, to try and corner Mr. Koudou?”
“No, I wasn’t,” he replied.
In his opening speech to the jury last month Glasgow told the jury, “Donte McCalla has been identified from the CCTV as part of the group that pursued Salem Koudou into Wynne Road and who tried to prevent his escape.”
He added, “Donte McCalla has been identified from the CCTV as one of the group that chased Salem Koudou down Wynne Road and either stabbed him to death, or who encouraged others to do the same; and Donte McCalla has been identified from the CCTV as he ran away from the fatally wounded Salem Koudou with his hands placed, rather awkwardly, in his waistband or in his pockets.”
The trial continues.
