A KITCHEN worker convicted of bludgeoning and stabbing a young man to death has launched a legal appeal against his conviction.
Francesco D’Agostino, 45, was found guilty of the murder of Serxhio Marku in Brighton in September 2019.
The former kitchen worker was jointly accused of murder alongside lodger Giuseppe Petriccione, 46, who was cleared by a jury.
Following his trial in September and October last year, D’Agostino was found guilty of killing the 21-year-old Albanian at a property in Stafford Road, in the Prestonville area of the city.
D’Agostino was jailed for life by Her Honour Judge Christine Laing QC.
He will have to serve a minimum of 22 years before he can be considered for parole.
But D’Agostino, originally from Rome, Italy, has now launched an appeal, which comes with 28 days of his conviction.
The Court of Appeal criminal division has confirmed that the appeal is in the “early stages” of the appeal process.
Previously, The Argus reported on how neighbours were left shocked at Stafford Road after Mr Marku was attacked at about 2am on September 11, 2019.
Neighbours reported how both D’Agostino and Mr Petriccione were arrested by armed police as they escaped their ground-floor flat via neighbours’ gardens.
Mr Marku had gone to sell drugs to them.
His last words were: “Why are you doing this to me, why are you doing this to me.”
Sentencing D’Agostino, of Stafford Road, Brighton, Judge Laing QC said: “The terror and trauma of the final minutes of his (Serxhio Marku’s) life is unimaginable.
“You dragged him back into the flat and set about the most ferocious assault on him.”
Kitchen worker D’Agostino had sent a text message to a friend two hours before the attack saying: “Tonight I will commit a murder.”
Judge Laing said: “Why you attacked him will almost certainly never be known.
“You claimed the text message was just a joke but the fact is within two-and-a-half hours, you had done just that.”
She said D’Agostino had made up a “pack of lies” to “save your own skin”.
He changed his story after hearing all the prosecution evidence in the first trial, which had to be stopped because of the coronavirus outbreak in March 2020.
According to the website defencebarrister.co.uk there are three main grounds for appeal, which are where a court has made an error of law, “material irregularities” such as jurors conducting research, and if new evidence comes to light.
Appellants have to set out in detail why a guilty verdict is unsafe.
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