A £4 MILLION murder case has collapsed because of “lies” told by a key prosecution witness.
The three-month Old Bailey trial came to a dramatic halt when Judge David Pager, QC, told the jury it would be “unsafe” to continue.
Scotland Yard detectives began their mammoth investigation at a third-floor flat in Arborfield, Peckwater Street, Kentish Town. They also combed a flat in nearby Una House in Prince of Wales Road. Both addresses were used as bases by members of a South American drugs cartel, the jury heard.
One was an Islington man who was later killed.
Illegal Colombian immigrant Luis Morales – known as Fernando – claimed he witnessed the execution of his friend at a farm near High Wycombe, Bucks.
Mr Morales, who lived in the Arborfield council flat, said he was kidnapped by gang members and driven to Bucks to watch the killing.
But he could not be relied on “as a man of truth,” Judge Paget told the jury when he stopped the case.
The self-confessed cocaine smuggler was part of a multi-million pound organised gang of ruthless international drugs barons.
He was suspected of double crossing other members of the gang and stealing 100,000 US dollars.
Mr Morales, 33, claimed he was kidnapped in July 1997. He was questioned about the money and forced to watch as fellow Colombian drug dealer Hernan Mora, 27, was strangled with the chain from a chainsaw.
Mr Mora, studying to become a lawyer, was also suspected of “ripping off” the cartel. He was tied up, quizzed about thousands of pounds which had vanished, and then killed.
His bound body, wrapped in bin liners, was found dumped in a field at the village of Ridge, Herts. He lived at a flat in Caledonian Road, Islington.
Mr Morales was accused of repeatedly lying to save his own skin and of carrying out the murder himself, or being party to it.
Defence QCs Courtenay Griffiths and Michael Turner said Mr Morales was “deeply involved” in drug dealing and money laundering. “You are a desperate man with malicious capabilities who makes wild allegations against innocent men,” said Mr Griffiths.
Mr Turner said the witness “lived in a world of false names, false passports and deceit”.
Two men from north London, Colombian chef Hever Morales, 29, – no relation to the witness – and Zoran Vujovic, 43, a Yugoslav DJ, walked free.
Judge Paget cleared them on charges of murder, kidnap and false imprisonment.