Four men jailed over 2019 kidnap, torture and killing of Tomasz Samel in Birmingham

Mixed · 2Four men have been jailed at Birmingham Crown Court over the kidnap, torture and death of Tomasz Samel, a 45-year-old father of two, who was set on fire with petrol. 1 2 Mixed · 2Mr Samel was kidnapped in Birmingham in March 2019 by men posing as Interpol officers. They drove him to the Liverpool area, where he was tortured and attacked to "teach him a lesson" over the loss of cigarettes worth £1 million. 1 2 Mixed · 2The court heard his killing was linked to the seizure of illicit and counterfeit cigarettes smuggled into the UK from Poland. HM Revenue and Customs had seized them on 22 February 2019 from a unit he had in Elkington Street, Aston. 1 2

Right · 1According to West Midlands Police, as reported by GB News, Kevin Wooden and Kye Arthur posed as Interpol officers with police-style earpieces and collected Mr Samel from his Handsworth address at 8.40am on 27 March 2019. They put him in a white Peugeot van and drove him to the Merseyside border, where he was tortured and burned. 2 Left · 1At 11.10pm that day he knocked at a remote property near Bickerstaffe, Lancashire, and was given water. He was taken to Whiston Hospital in Prescot and died on 21 June 2019 of his injuries, about three months later. 1 Mixed · 2Neil Jones, 48, and Tobiasz Kozlowski, 38, described as among the main organisers, were jailed for life. GB News, citing the CPS, gave minimum terms of 34 years for Jones and 33 years for Kozlowski. It reported that both pleaded guilty before trial to conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to falsely imprison, and that Jones also admitted manslaughter. 1 2

Mixed · 2Kevin Wooden, 46, and Kye Arthur, 35, were cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter. They were sentenced to 23 and 22 years respectively. Metro also says they were cleared of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. 1 2 Mixed · 2Kozlowski's wife, Sandra Kozlowska, 38, received a three-year prison sentence, suspended, after being found guilty of assisting an offender. GB News says she helped him avoid detection by police, hid evidence and moved money through bank accounts for him. 1 2 Mixed · 2Sentencing, Mr Justice Wall said the defendants had involved themselves in a "truly horrific series of events". He said he was sure Kozlowski and Jones were organisers who intended Mr Samel to die, and that the distinction between intending to kill and intending serious harm when someone is set alight with petrol was "paper thin". He said Mr Samel was "naked and outnumbered" and that life terms were "richly deserved". 1 2

Left · 1The judge said Jones and Kozlowski each had a financial stake in the missing cigarettes and a motive to punish the man they blamed, and that both had travelled to Poland afterwards. He accepted that Wooden and Arthur were recruited and paid, posing as Amazon delivery men and then law enforcement officers, and that the manslaughter verdicts showed they knew violence would follow. 1 Mixed · 2The investigation extended to Poland, Greece, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Colombia, France, Scotland and Wales, where the gang had operations or had fled. The CPS said Wooden was arrested in the Dominican Republic under a false name and extradited before trial. 1 2 Mixed · 2Chief Superintendent Scott Griffiths of West Midlands Police said Mr Samel would have suffered "an unimaginable amount of pain". The CPS's Kate Seal called it "a brutal attack on a man who was kidnapped from his own home", and Hannah Sidaway, a CPS roving liaison prosecutor, credited cross-border cooperation including with Eurojust. 2 1

Mixed · 2Metro says Mr Samel was working for an organised crime group and was the subject of an international arrest warrant. GB News does not say this and says the attack followed the seizure of a storage unit he owned. 1 2