Zayd Alasaly is one of five defendants who are accused of murdering 54-year-old Paul Foster in a drugs ‘taxing’
Zayd Alasaly is accused of the murder of Paul Foster(Image: Facebook)
A self-confessed drug dealer who is accused of murder has denied telling his co-defendant “sons out, guns out” in the dock during an alleged threat towards her children. Paul Foster, who was known as “Pablo”, died aged 47 after suffering a single stab wound to the back during a “taxing” on Muirhead Avenue in West Derby in the early hours of October 15, 2024.
His assailants were said to have been “tooled up” with a knife and an imitation firearm at the time of the robbery, stealing drugs and a quantity of cash from the address before fleeing. Four men and a woman, Elsadig Abrahim, Zayd Alasaly, Dylan Blundell, Michael Fields and Sarah Kasseum, are currently on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of his murder.
Alasaly began giving his evidence to the court this afternoon, Monday. Under cross-examination by his counsel Tim Storrie KC, he described how he first began dealing drugs at 14, growing up in Toxteth before moving to Kendal, Cumbria, in order to sell heroin and crack cocaine after being kicked out by his mum aged around 17 or 18.
Appearing in the witness box with a shaved head and beard and wearing a blue Under Armour t-shirt, Alasaly was asked about his previous convictions, including an offence of possession of a bladed article in a public place in September 2017, when the then 15-year-old was said to have “possessed a knife and passed it to a co-accused, who used it to wound the victim in the course of a fight in college”. When questioned over whether he had “passed that weapon so that he could wound someone”, he replied: “I just passed it.”
Alasaly was then convicted of robbery and possession of a bladed article in 2022, having “robbed a female victim of an electric scooter, when he produced a large kitchen knife and said “pass it over” in the Carlisle area. He said of the complainant in this matter: “I knew of her. She was selling drugs to the same people I was selling drugs to. I took her drugs off her and her scooter, because she was selling to the same customers as mine in the same place.”
Asked whether he had “any intention of using the knife against her” during the incident, which led to him being handed four years behind bars, Alasaly replied: “No, I didn’t. I just lifted up my top, just to show her.”
Mr Storrie then put to him: “The prosecution may say, here is you with a knife when you were 15. That must mean you are the sort of person to use a knife now, in your 20s, just as happened in the Pablo Foster killing.”
But Alasaly responded “I didn’t use the knife”. When asked about the “suggestion that he would use a knife to rob another drug dealer” in relation to his 2022 conviction, he added: “It was interfering with my business.”
Having been released from this sentence during 2024, Alasaly said that he resumed his drug dealing activities in the Kendal area and from the home of a man named Paul Tully on Fernhill Drive in Toxteth, telling the court: “A friend passed me a few numbers. When I come back to Liverpool from Kendal, I’d sell drugs in Liverpool as well, mainly when I was in Paul Tully’s. A lot of crackheads would come and knock on anyway. That was my main income from customers.
“I met him through a friend who was selling in the area. He stopped selling, so I asked him were there any houses I could sell from. He gave me Paul Tully’s address. He was a drug user, but he’d sometimes go into town for me with my drugs and sell a little bit of my drugs.”
Alasaly said that he was present at Mr Tully’s house “through the night” of October 14, 2024, stating that Kasseum and Fields visited the property “late at night” on that evening in order to buy drugs. He said of this: “I seen someone pulling up outside. I seen it was Michael. They pulled up in a car outside the house. I opened the door and went out.
“I jumped in the car to give them the drugs. I jumped back out and went into Paul Tully’s. They weren’t there for long. I’m not sure if they come in after I sold them the drugs. But they weren’t there for long.”
Alasaly’s iPhone was then seen cell siting around Liverpool alongside Fields’ car, with both shown to be at the scene of the stabbing. But he denied having also been present in the Kia Ceed, instead telling the jury: “When Michael and Sarah come to Paul Tully’s to buy drugs, I jumped in the car, I sold them the drugs. I got back into Paul Tully’s and realised, about 10 minutes or 15 minutes later, that the phone weren’t in my pocket. I thought it must have fell out my pocket.
“I thought it might be in the house, so I had a look round the house first. I’ve asked Paul Tully if he’d seen it. He said no. I asked him to ring Sarah or Mick. I’m not sure if he done it, but I asked him to ring them and see if the phone was in the car.”
Alasaly said the phone was then returned to him “around an hour or two later”, when the vehicle made another visit to Fernhill Drive, recalling: “I think I ran out when they pulled up. I’ve opened the door, ‘cos I seen it was them, went out to the car, said ‘let me just quickly check the back of the car’, seen it on the floor, grabbed it, and they come in as well.”
When he said his phone had been returned to him, Alasaly said: “While I was in Fernhill Drive, someone warned me to turn my phone off. I can’t remember his name. I did try and ask questions, but he didn’t say much. He just said, something’s happened, turn your phone off, ‘cos it was in the car.”
Mr Storrie then put to his client that Blundell had named him as being responsible for the stabbing, as well as having “chased him into B&M” at a later date. However, he said he had been recalled to prison at the time of the latter incident and only first met this co-defendant when both were inmates at HMP Lancaster Farms.
Alasaly said of this: “There aren’t many Scousers in jails like that. When you see one, you tend to speak to them. He was alright. I wouldn’t really try and socialise with him that much, because he was on the spice. He smoked spice every day. He was just paranoid. He’d smoke a pipe of spice and he’d get all paranoid.
“The first time I spoke to him, I realised he was a Scouser. I asked him, where are you from? He said Toxteth. I said, I’m from Toxteth as well. Then we just started speaking.”
Alasaly said Blundell only later told him that he was “on bail for a murder”, with his co-accused subsequently alleging in relation to his girlfriend: “He accused me of chatting to her one time after he’d smoked spice. He weren’t all there in the head. I’d just laugh it off.”
Asked about how he felt when he learned of Blundell accusing him of being responsible for the stabbing, Alasaly said he was “shocked, surprised”. He said he had similarly not known Abrahim until he was remanded into custody accused of Mr Foster’s murder at HMP Liverpool, at which stage they “met in Friday prayers”.
Alasaly stated that he did not initially realise that the other man was also charged with the same offence, telling the court: “I was just chatting to him, asking what wing is he on. He was on a different wing. But, when we have Friday prayers, we all come together.”
Abrahim was said to have not known or recognised Alasaly at this stage, leading him to be similarly “shocked” when his co-defendant later named him as being present in the vehicle. He told the jury: “I asked him, how come you’ve put my name in? I don’t know you. He told me it was Dylan who told him I was in the car, so that’s why he’s put my name in.”
With Kasseum having also named him as having travelled to the scene of the robbery, Alasaly was asked whether he “had any reason to join in any enterprise like this with Sarah Kasseum”. He replied: “No, I don’t need to. I sell drugs.”
Alasaly also denied having issued threats to Blundell or Abrahim before he was cross-examined by Kassuem’s barrister Peter Finnigan KC, who put to him: “You didn’t threaten Sarah Kasseum, either, I suppose, when she came up from the cells? It’s not the sort of thing that you do, is it Mr Alasaly? Mick Fields telling her to watch out for her sons, and you saying ‘sons out, guns out’?”
But Alasaly replied, “that’s a lie that, why would I say something like that?”. Further asked how the phone had been left in the car, he said: “I wear trackies, tracksuits. They always fall out. I didn’t see it until I got back in the house and it wasn’t in my pocket.”
Mr Finnigan then put to him: “As far as Sarah Kasseum is concerned, you barely know her. She has absolutely no reason to make up a story about you, does she? Is that why you’re so upset with her?”
At this, Alasaly, who earlier reported that he had only known Kasseum for around a week at the time of Mr Foster’s stabbing, said “no she doesn’t, I’m not upset with her”. Again accused of threatening the mum-of-two, he added: “I didn’t threaten her.”
Mr Finnigan thereafter said of his case: “You are entirely innocent of this, aren’t you, on your account? They [Kasseum and Fields] know it, and they’ve chosen not to let the jury know you’re an innocent man?”
To this, Alasaly responded: “They got my name from when I got dragged into this case by Dylan. Everyone wants to start saying my name. No one knows me here apart from Mick and Sarah. I’ve lost track of how many stories have been said by these.”
Abrahim, aged 61 and of Croxteth Road in Toxteth, 23-year-old Alasaly, of Corinto Street in Toxteth, 26-year-old Blundell, of Corsewall Street in Wavertree, 41-year-old Kasseum, of Lower Breck Road in Anfield, and 50-year-old Fields, of no fixed address, all deny murder and possession of a bladed article in a public place. Abrahim, Alasaly and Kasseum have also pleaded not guilty to robbery and carrying an imitation firearm with intent to commit an offence.
Blundell and Fields, however, admit these two counts, with the latter having similarly pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The trial, before Judge Simon Medland KC, continues.