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Four individuals have been convicted in connection with the death of a man who was set on fire after being doused in petrol. Tomasz Samel, a 45-year-old man, was abducted in 2019 from his residence in Birmingham by an organised crime group who suspected him of losing £1 million worth of illegal cigarettes. Following his kidnapping, Samel was taken to the Liverpool area, where he suffered a severe and violent attack.
Among those found guilty of murder were Tobiasz Kozlowski, from Kirby, Merseyside, and Neil Jones, 48, who has no fixed address. Both were involved in the abduction, false imprisonment, torture, and ultimately setting Samel on fire. Two additional men, Kevin Wooden, originally from Banbury, Oxfordshire, and Kye Arthur, from Bristol, were acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter. Sentencing for all four men is scheduled for October 9.
Evidence presented during the trial revealed that Samel was kidnapped from his home in Handsworth by Wooden, Arthur, and another man posing as Interpol officers carrying out a European arrest warrant. He was then locked inside a white Peugeot Boxer van and transported to Merseyside, where he endured torture. Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu KC detailed how Samel was burned while reportedly naked and seated. After the attack, it is believed his injured body was left in a remote rural area. Remarkably, Samel managed to seek help by knocking on the door of a stranger’s home near Bickerstaffe, where he was given water and emergency services were called. Despite medical efforts, Samel passed away at Whiston Hospital in Prescot on June 21 from his injuries.
The motive behind Samel’s brutal treatment was linked to counterfeit cigarettes smuggled into the UK from Poland. He ran a unit in Aston where HM Revenue and Customs had seized cigarettes on February 22, 2019. During the trial, it was revealed that Jones and Kozlowski had been present during Samel’s torture and immolation, while Wooden and Arthur had been involved in planning the attack. The Crown Prosecution Service’s Kate Seal described the assault as “horrendous violence” and a “brutal attack,” expressing sympathy for Samel’s family, who suffered through witnessing the abduction. Kozlowski’s wife, Sandra Kozlowska, 38, was also convicted of assisting an offender by helping her husband evade suspicion through financial transactions and providing false information to the police. She was granted bail but reminded by the judge that this did not guarantee she would avoid imprisonment.
Prior to the trial, Kozlowski and Jones pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to falsely imprison, with Jones also admitting to manslaughter. Both were also convicted of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. Wooden and Arthur admitted involvement in conspiracy to kidnap and falsely imprison but were cleared of murder and conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. The court heard that Kozlowski and Jones had recruited others to participate in the kidnapping, imprisonment, and violent assault on Samel as a form of punishment
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