LURED to his death, hit on the head with a crowbar and his body removed inside a duvet with a plastic bag over his head.

That’s what prosecutors say happened to Agim Hoxha in the hours before his charred remains were discovered inside his burnt-out car.

Nicholas Haggan QC suggested foot-long cable ties had been used to bind the 29-yearold’s legs and masking tape put over his mouth to stop him shouting out before he was killed by Arben Lleshi and Afrim Lleshi inside a Southampton flat.

In the early hours of the morning of April 10 last year, Mr Hoxha’s body was then carried down the stairs and dumped in the rear footwell of his Mercedes coupe before Arben drove the vehicle to Chilworth and torched it with a can of petrol, Mr Haggan said.

This was denied by Arben during his third day in the witness box. He said: “If I knew I would never have burnt the car with a body inside. No.”

The 25-year-old says he set fire to the car in return for £3,000 from Afrim, who had arranged a robbery, and that he had been duped and was now being framed for the killing.

But Mr Haggan said: “The reality is very different. You were involved with Afrim Lleshi in a plan to kill Mr Hoxha. You plotted together to kill him. Over a series of days you were planning how to murder him. Now that you have been caught you are pointing the finger at each other. You thought you’d get away with it, that the police had no evidence, but you were wrong.”

Arben Lleshi, of Onlsow Road, Southampton, and Afrim Lleshi of Shirley Road, Shirley, Southampton, both deny murder. Arben denies a second charge of peverting the course of justice, which Afrim has already admitted.

Proceeding.