TWO men from Croydon have been convicted of stabbing a property developer to death in a botched robbery.
Afyon Saint-Hilaire, 22, was ambushed and knifed in the leg in his car after arranging a meeting to sell £450 of skunk cannabis.
He managed to get back in his Mercedes and drive away before crashing into a parked car and collapsing from loss of blood near the scene in Downham, south London.
Shyheim Green, 20, from South Croydon, Lance Sloley, 23, from Thornton Heath, and Jordache Smith-Challis, 20, of Brighton, were all convicted of manslaughter and conspiracy to rob by an Old Bailey jury after nearly 28 hours of deliberation today (Tuesday). They were cleared of murder.
Two other suspects - drug dealers Marcus El-Alfy, 18, and Vishal Deowram, 18 - were cleared of all charges while Mr St Hilaire's cousin Mickyle Bromfield, 24, was convicted of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Judge Gerald Gordon said he would sentence the killers later this week.
Mr Saint-Hilaire, a father-of-one from Bromley, was involved in property development and had set up his own music production company.
He also traded cannabis and, on July 13 last year, arranged to sell £450 of skunk weed to El-Alfy and Deowram outside McDonald's in Old Bromley Road, Downham.
He drove there and left his cousin, who was armed with a Colt pistol, sitting in his Mercedes while he went to the dealers' Ford Focus.
"Things were not quite what they seemed because some of the men had other ideas, namely to rob the dealers of their cannabis," said prosecutor Dorian Lovell-Pank.
"He had the two and a quarter ounces of cannabis with him and the money was being counted up and just at that moment three men appeared on the scene.
"In the road there was some kind of struggle and whilst the struggle was going on Bromfield got out of the Mercedes where he had been the passenger holding a gun, which he fired.
"At that moment Afyan and Bromfield got into the Mercedes and drove off. Afyon had been injured, he had been stabbed in his leg just above the knee and not far down the road he crashed.
"It was not a bad crash - he bumped into a parked Honda and came to a standstill and he died shortly after, simply from a loss of blood."
Afyon's blood filled the footwell of his car as he drove away and he begged his cousin to call his father and brothers.
Police discovered the gun in a garden nearby but the knife and cannabis have never been recovered.
It is not know who carried out the stabbing.
Smith-Challis - who earned the nickname 'Gruesome' as an amateur boxer - admitted having a fight with Mr Saint-Hilaire on the night of his murder, but insisted he had nothing to do with the stabbing.
He claimed the first he heard about the victim's death was on the news the next day.
El-Alfy, of Riverside Court, Vincent Close, Bromley; Deowram, of Wharfedale Gardens, Thornton Heath, south London; Smith-Challis, of Bexhill Road, Brighton; Green, of Joshua Close, South Croydon and Sloley, of Broughton Road, Thornton Heath, all denied murder and conspiracy to rob.
Bromfield, of Field Lane, Brentford, Middlesex, denied possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life and an alternative of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear or violence.
