A man accused of conspiracy to murder had no animosity towards the victim, Leeds Crown Court heard this week.

Mohammed Rafiq, 21, had often played football with the dead man, the jury was told.

Keighley security guard Qadir Ahmed, 24, was beaten to death by a masked gang after his car was rammed at the Victoria Park roundabout in Keighley on February 13 last year.

Rafiq -- who is among seven men accused of conspiring to murder Mr Ahmed -- told the court on Wednesday that at the time of the killing, at about 11pm, he had been smoking cannabis with one of his friends, Aqas Younis, in his elder brother's Nissan Sunny in Chatsworth Street, Keighley.

Questioned by his defence counsel, Paul Garlick QC, about what time he finished smoking, Rafiq said: "I can't say what time exactly but it was after midnight."

Rafiq said he then walked with Mr Younis towards a friend's house, but they heard a car screech and went to investigate.

He told the court he saw an Asian man who he recognised as Imran Sardar and a white man stood next to a silver Volvo and a white vehicle.

Rafiq said that as he approached one of the cars it exploded, burning his face.

He said he was told by Sardar that they were destroying the cars for insurance purposes. He said Sardar warned him that if he went to Airedale Hospital for treatment he would "end up like his brother".

Rafiq's 16-year-old brother Yasser Nazir was killed outside a Bradford petrol station in September 2001.

Mr Younis then drove Rafiq to Zahid Bashir's house in Emily Street, Keighley, and Bashir took both the men to Burnley Hospital where Rafiq was treated for burns.

When asked by a hospital doctor how he received his injuries, Rafiq said he had been burned by chip fat. But he told a hospital receptionist he'd been burning rubbish.

He was later transferred by ambulance to the Preston Burns Unit.

The court heard yesterday that when Rafiq applied for police bail, he had admitted setting fire to the Rover 820 allegedly used in the attack.

But he told the jury he had been lying to get bail.

He had denied knowing the co-defendants, but the court heard that evidence from mobile phone itemised bills showed he had made calls to some of them before the attack.

He also admitted to the court about lying in an interview with the police.

Rafiq and Bashir, 27, and five other men deny conspiring to murder Mr Ahmed.

The others are: Zulfiqar Asif, 23, of Bradford Road, Keighley; Mohammed Iqbal, 24, of Salt Street, Manningham, Bradford; Parveez Ashraf, 26, of Victoria Park View, Keighley; Atif Younis, 22, of Buxton Street, Keighley, and Amjad Ali Azam, 21, of Surrey Street, Keighley.

The court had heard on Tuesday how Azam bought three hammers and three axes from a store in Keighley.

He was caught on closed-circuit television cameras buying the implements at the town's B&Q store, said prosecution counsel Jennifer Kershaw.

Azam said he was buying them on behalf of a friend, fellow defendant Mohammed Iqbal, even though he had no idea why and had not been given any money to buy them.

Mrs Kershaw told the court that at least one of the tools bought by Azam was used in the murder of Mr Ahmed.

But Azam insisted he was buying them as a favour for Iqbal, who did not have time to buy them himself.

Azam, who said he was flitting between homes in Bacup in Lancashire and Keighley at the time of the killing, insisted he did not know about the killing of Mr Ahmed until he heard about it on the television news some days later.

But Mrs Kershaw said there was a succession of telephone calls made to and from Azam's mobile phone before the killing, then a quiet period of about an hour, and then another succession of calls.

"Eleven calls in an hour, then it goes quiet," she said. "Was it because you and your friends were doing something else, like killing Qadir Ahmed?"

"No," replied Azam, who insisted he could remember little or nothing about most of the telephone calls he was alleged to have made or received during that time.

Mrs Kershaw said Azam had changed his story about driving back to Bacup on the night of Mr Ahmed's murder when he realised his car had been spotted on closed circuit television in Keighley.

Azam said it was merely a mistake because he had been 'doped' on cannabis and ecstasy at the time.

The trial continues.