A teenager accused of killing 15-year-old Amen Teklay in Glasgow “did not lay a finger” on him, a murder trial has been told.
The defence lawyer for one of the boys accused of the murder urged jurors to acquit his client as he gave his closing speech on Friday.
Two teenagers aged 16 and 17 have been on trial accused of murdering the 15-year-old in a sword attack.
Amen was found seriously injured on Clarendon Street, Maryhill, on the evening of March 5 last year and died at the scene.
The murder charge alleges that the two teenage boys, with their faces masked, assaulted Amen and brandished a frying pan and a sword or similar instrument at him at Glenfarg Street and Clarendon Street on March 5 last year.
It is alleged that the pair, who cannot be named due to their age, chased Amen and struck him on the body with the sword, leaving him so severely injured that he died.
The two boys deny the charge and the 16-year-old has lodged a special defence of self-defence.
Iain McSporran KC addressed jurors for about an hour on Friday on behalf of the second accused, who is 17.
He said his client had assisted police with their investigation and spoke at length to detectives in the days after Amen’s death.
Mr McSporran said: “As far as he was concerned, he had done nothing wrong.”
The lawyer said prosecutors had overreached by charging his client, and that the 17-year-old “was not involved in any feud or drug dealing or gang”.
He said his client had enough knowledge to be “wary” of Amen but wished him no harm, saying: “He did not lay a finger on Amen Teklay and the prosecution do not say otherwise.”
Mr McSporran said there was a lack of evidence on which to convict his client on the basis of a common criminal enterprise with the first accused.
He said that on the day of the incident, Amen Teklay had “gone out of his way” to find the first accused, and that Amen had been armed with a weapon described as a “cutlass” or a “pirate sword”.
The 17-year-old had not participated in the violence that followed, Mr McSporran said.
He told jurors: “I have no doubt that (Amen’s) family loves him and misses him.”
He added: “By your verdict you cannot restore Amen Teklay to his family…
“Sympathy plays no part in the verdict process.”
The trial has been taking place before Lord Colbeck at the High Court in Glasgow.
