MALAYSIAN Noor Azura Mohd Yusoff, on trial at the Old Bailey for the brutal decapitation of a Chinese student whose hands were also chopped off, was a prostitute, prosecutors claimed.
Prosecutors said that Noor Azura, 22, also known as 'Princess', was a hooker, was "possessive", and also jealous of the relationships her Belfast-born boyfriend of Vietnamese origin, 26-year-old Trach Lon Gian, had with other women.
Noor Azura was also alleged to have issued a death threat to Xie Xingxing days before the victim's remains were found floating in a bag in a south London dock.
In court yesterday, Xie's flatmate, Rui Li, said Xie, known as Evelyn to her friends, told her that Noor Azura had called and threatened to kill her.
Speaking in Mandarin via an interpreter, Li said, "She (Noor Azura) was asking about the relationship between Evelyn and her boyfriend, and also if Evelyn had any relationship with her boyfriend she would not have treated it kindly.
"Later on, Evelyn told me that she had threatened her and said she would kill her."
Li said even she (Li) was not spared a warning as Noor Azura had texted her phone with a message which read: "Leave my boyfriend alone, stay away from him."
Trach, from Deptford, south London, is also accused of the crime. Both he and Noor Azura have denied murdering Xie. Li, who worked with Xie in a karaoke bar, said that prior to the murder she had attended a party at a Greenwich hotel.
However, she left when the party continued at the home of Noor Azura and Trach in Knoyle Street, New Cross, south-east London.
Noor Azura, the court was told, wasn't present at the house during the party.
Li said Trach told her he did not "love her (Noor Azura) as much as he used to but he will still be responsible for her".
Another Vietnamese man, Chanh Ngo, whom the authorities believed was involved in the murder but has since fled Britain, was also present at the party, she said.
Xie was believed to have been killed two weeks after the party.
On Wednesday, the prosecution argued that evidence pointed to the murder having been committed in the couple's flat.
Brian Altman, appearing for the prosecution, said traces of Xie's blood were found in the flat.
The odds that the blood wasn't hers, Altman, said, were a billion to one. The property, he said, had been cleaned by the time police searched it. However, cops discovered swabs of blood matching Xie's on the bathroom door and on the shower head in the bath.
"The probability of obtaining matching DNA profiles if the blood had come from someone else was in the order of one in a billion," he said.
The prosecution also said that there was "very strong" evidence that a bedsheet found with Xie's body had been in contact with the beige carpet at the house.
Her decapitated body, minus hands, were fished out of the river on April 19 by a couple living in a boathouse in the marina. Seven weeks later, a decapitated head wrapped in a bin bag washed up close by.
Jurors were also told that there was "moderate support" for saying the plastic bags used to wrap the head were from a roll found at the address.
Her hands have never been found.
The case continues today.
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