A man who stabbed 42-year-old Gary Brisco to death in a fight at hostel for the homeless in London’s East End has been convicted today of his murder.
Mehretab Zemicael, 43, went on the run, sleeping rough in the streets, after stabbing Gary at the hostel in Spitalfields last summer.
Police were called to the premises in Code Street, off Brick Lane, by an ambulance crew which had arrived after a 999 call to find Gary dead in his room at 5.30pm on June 22.
Gary had several knife wounds, including his neck, and was declared dead at the scene.
Zemicael was immediately identified as a suspect after others at the hostel had heard the men rowing, but had fled.
A manhunt was launched by Scotland Yard’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command, lead by Det Insp Andy Kelly, with a public appeal issued the next day.
Detectives eventually tracked him down to a street at Southwark in south London on July 9, where he had been sleeping rough, and arrested him.
Zemicael, an Eritrean national from East Africa, was charged the following day with Gary Brisco’s murder. He was found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey today and is being sentenced on March 6.
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