'Muscle' thug hired in revenge plot on Daneiko Ferguson in Harehills drugs dispute found guilty of murder
A man recruited as “muscle” to hunt down Daneiko Ferguson and stab him to death in Harehills over a drug dispute has been convicted of his murder.
Following a retrial, Halgon Randon was found to have taken part in bloody street attack on the 27-year-old.
Drug dealer Alga Lutondo was found guilty of the killing after a month-long trial in December, but on that occasion the jury failed to reach a verdict on 43-year-old Randon, whom Lutondo had recruited to help track down Mr Ferguson.
Randon’s retrial started earlier this month at Leeds Crown Court, with the jury reaching a verdict this afternoon having deliberated for two days. Both he and 33-year-old Lutondo will face a mandatory life sentence and will return to court on June 25, with the minimum term they should serve to be decided by the judge.
During the trials it was heard that Mr Ferguson had “taxed” a female drug dealer’s house on Cowper Terrace in the early hours of February 15 last year – kicking his way into her property demanding the woman hand over her drugs.
After he left, the woman called Lutondo, for whom she worked, to tell him about Ferguson’s attack. Lutondo then recruited Randon “as muscle” and they both set off on push bikes searching for Ferguson.
When they found him on Compton Street, they repeatedly stabbed him before riding off, leaving Mr Ferguson collapsed at the side of the road. He was found by a passing taxi driver at around 3am and was taken to hospital, but died a short time later.
He was stabbed five times to the head, torso, pelvis and the groin – the latter cutting his femoral artery and causing “catastrophic bleeding”.
Lutondo later tried to leave the country, but was stopped from boarding a flight at Heathrow which was bound for Africa.
Lutondo, formerly of Berkeley Crescent, Harehills, and Randon, of Brown Hill Terrace, Harehills, were later charged with murder. Both Lutondo and Randon accepted being on Compton Street, but sought to blame each other for fatally stabbing Mr Ferguson.