Knifeman, 29, murdered Russian businessman, 39, in east London street in row over cannabis

A knifeman who murdered a Russian businessman in the street during a row over cannabis has been jailed for more than two decades.

Kitchen knife-wielding Yasin Amare, 29, stabbed Gleb Zhebrovsky, 39, three times in Alton Street, Poplar, east London, before leaving him to bleed to death.

He fled to Thornton Heath, where he booked into a hotel for two nights until he was found by police, to whom he put on an ‘impressive act’ to ‘feign ignorance’ of the killing.

Today, at the Old Bailey in London, Amare was jailed for a minimum term of 22 years for the murder of Mr Zhebrovsky.

The court heard the stabbing took place at  around 2.10pm on 15 June last year.

Amare attacked the victim after the drugs dispute in the early hours of the same day which was followed by a heated phone call.

Armed with a kitchen knife, wearing a hooded top and accompanied by his friend Khalif Yusuf, 34, Amare walked the ‘short distance’ to a nearby park in Tower Hamlets.

Mr Zheborovsky was stabbed twice in the back and once to the chest in a blow that was ‘inevitably fatal’, penetrating his heart, and ‘delivered with severe force’.

After the stabbing Amare ran from the scene, got rid of the knife and washed his hooded sweatshirt, before disguising himself with a baseball cap.

He fled to Thornton Heath, where he booked into a hotel for two nights until found by police.

Amare ‘put on an impressive act’ upon arrest, and gave an ‘entirely false tale and feigning ignorance’ of the brutal attack, and continued with a ‘detailed, prepared statement’ in which he wrongly blamed his co-defendant Mr Yusuf – who was cleared by the jury.

Mr Zhebrovsky had moved to London to set up a construction business after working on Beyonce and Jay-Z’s On the Run tour and Katy Perry’s Witness concert at the O2 in Greenwich. 

In a statement by Mr Zhebrovsky’s mother Nataliya Zhebrovskaya, described her son as ‘light-hearted’ and ‘very sporty’ and said she spoke on the phone to him ‘every day’.

She said: ‘I know he was lonely in the UK despite loving London,’ and that he would often call late in the night when he couldn’t’ sleep.

‘He was my best friend, the meaning of my life. Now that he’s gone, I no longer see any point of living,’ said the 68-year-old widow.

She added: ‘I couldn’t bear to see the face of the man who took him away. You took away two lives, mine and his.’

Mrs Zhebrovskaya said she has suffered a nervous breakdown after hearing the news, and was left ‘surviving’ off anti-depressants and ‘sitting in my house doing nothing’. 

Michael Holland, defending, described the situation around the stabbing as ‘escalating and fast-moving’, and where ‘things were boiling up.’

Mr Holland said the attack ‘boiled out in the heat of those moments.’

‘This was not premeditation of a defendant calmly going to a location and murdering him.

‘Although a knife was taken to the scene, it was taken impulsively and on the spur of the moment.’

Mr Holland said ‘there was a genuinely different side to Amare,’ and that he ‘fell into bad company’.

He said until around two years ago, Amare was a ‘highly respectable and respected young man’, who ‘took on the responsibility’ of looking after his six siblings with his grandmother, following the death of his mother when he was aged just 11.

He had recently left his grandmother’s home, gave up work and resorted to ‘intense cannabis use’. 

Judge Sarah Munro jailed the killer for a minimum of 22 years, but Amare refused to attend the hearing. 

‘The attack was short-lived and Gleb Stalnoy had no chance to defend himself. He collapsed almost immediately and all attempts to save his life were in vain.

‘He took away the life of an innocent man who had done no more than, at most, fail to provide cannabis to the defendant,’ said Judge Munro.

The judge added: ‘No term of years can bring her son back and nothing I can say or do can ease her pain.’

Amare was found guilty following a re-trial at the Old Bailey. The jury had failed to reach a verdict following the initial trial at the same court, which concluded in December 2019.