Daily Mail
November 9, 2014
An innocent father was stabbed to death outside a London pub after a gang targeted him by mistake in a revenge attack.
City porter Christopher Foster, 34, was stabbed in the back as he smoked a cigarette with a friend outside a pub in Borough High Street, south London on November 29 last year.
Mr Foster, who has a four-year-old daughter, suffered catastrophic internal injuries and died an hour after the attack at the St Christopher’s Inn.
The man who led the gang, Aytach Lisani, 33, has previously pleaded guilty to murdering the father-of-one and faces life behind bars.
Three more men – Rocky Djelal, 34, Billy Dove, 30, Ali Lisani, 38, of south east London – admitted conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm after murder charges against them were dropped mid-trial at the Old Bailey.
Two more defendants were cleared today of the GBH plot.
The court had heard Aytach Lisani had mistaken Mr Foster for another man, Harry Saunders, who was drinking in the same bar and had allegedly slashed the face of a friend, Aydin Salih, months earlier.
Prosecutor David Fisher told the jury: ‘On the evening of Friday November 29 last year Christopher Foster was standing with his friend Danny Murphy outside Saint Christopher’s Inn on Borough High Street.
‘They were having a last drink outside as were a number of people. The atmosphere in the alleyway was good but it was interrupted by a group of approximately seven men and a man named Aydin Salih.
‘Faces obscured by hoods and scarves, their conduct was menacing, some were carrying bats and at least one knife.
‘Christopher Foster had his back to the advancing group until at the last moment he turned.
‘Danny Murphy believed there would be trouble but had no idea why. They decided to go back inside the pub but before they could do so Christopher Foster was stabbed once to the left side of his back, most probably from behind.
‘Both men managed to enter the pub but Mr Foster had been seriously injured and collapsed.’
He died in hospital an hour and a half later.