Builder and fraudster identified as potential suspect
A professional builder who once rented an apartment from Sami Alexander in Hemel Hempstead has been flagged as a person of interest in relation to his former landlord’s murder in 2009. The now 60-year-old had just been released from prison when he met Sami, having served time for stabbing a neighbour. It is thought that the two fell out when the man refused to pay his rent.
The man’s name appears on a list of ‘enemies’ contained in Sami’s address book which Mark had handed to police officers before he was even arrested. In what began as a missing person’s enquiry, officers had turned up at the London flat Mark was sharing with his then girlfriend at the time, but Mark had not heard from his father for several months. Absorbed in university life, he describes not picking up on the ‘warning signs’ at the time, having grown accustomed to his father disappearing for short periods without explaining where he was going.
Mark gave officers a copy of his father’s address book which he kept for emergencies, but there is no record in the police HOLMES journal (a log of all enquiries conducted in an investigation) of any contact being made with the former tenant. This, in spite of entries showing that the police did approach others listed on Sami’s schedule of ‘enemies’. The existence of the man’s criminal past was not disclosed to Mark’s defence before trial, so the significance of the contact was never apparent to Mark’s legal team amongst the flood of other documents being disclosed to them by the Crown Prosecution Service.
Since Mark lacked the expertise required to conduct the burial and concealment of his father’s body, efforts to identify those involved in the professional groundworks at the house where Sami was discovered have helped to build up a profile of the kind of person actually responsible for the complex operation. Experts estimate it would have taken a single person more than 40 hours to carry out the excavation alone, with further time required for the subsequent mixing and laying of mortar. That this had been conducted without alerting the locals has led analysts to conclude that this most likely took place under the cover of darkness, in stark contrast to Mark’s appearance in broad daylight on 17 November. Analysis of Mark’s movements at the time suggest that he simply wasn’t in the area long enough or consistently enough for him to have been responsible.
By comparison, the “mix quality and consistency (both thoroughness of mixing and degree of compaction) of the mortar layers suggests preparation by an experienced person”. According to the haulier’s own description, “I remember thinking he was out of his depth. He looked as though he had never used a wheelbarrow before. He clearly didn’t have a clue what he was doing”.
The noticeably smooth finish to the mortar would have appeared completely normal to Mark when he arrived on 17 November 2009, giving him no reason to suspect that anything was buried beneath it.
In the years following Mark’s trial a picture of Sami’s secret, criminal lifestyle has emerged that reveals he used at least 12 aliases and dabbled in a variety of frauds from romance scams to mortgage, credit and benefit fraud. It has long been thought that his death was linked to this aspect of his life and would have involved someone who mixed in those same circles.
Following a year-long investigation, journalist Robin Eveleigh eventually traced the builder through social media platforms, confirming the link to Sami, who was going by the name El-Kalyoubi at the time. It now appears that the man perpetrated a multi-million pound fraud on 28 August 2009, just weeks before Sami’s reported disappearance. A co-conspirator in the fraud later committed suicide after being double-crossed by the builder, but critical evidence was destroyed before police could sweep in. The man was eventually convicted, and has been out of prison since 2019.
Criminal appeals expert, Dr Michael Naughton, believes the development is significant, telling the Daily Mail that:
“it could have a major impact on the safety of Mark’s conviction. All of these ‘enemies’ should have been properly investigated. They should have been interviewed under police caution. The police should have looked at their alibis and anything they found should have been disclosed to both the prosecution and the defence”
The passage of time is likely to make any investigation today extremely challenging, but we are calling on the CPS to take whatever steps are necessary to give this matter the attention it should have received 16 years ago. Mark has now served the minimum term originally set by the Judge when sentencing him in 2010, and hopes to be released later in the year. In the meantime, a number of other evidential leads are being pursued with the intention of filing a fresh and comprehensive appeal against Mark’s conviction. The new application will bring together all of the new arguments and evidence that have been gathered during his time in prison.
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