WANNABE rapper Euan Peters was jailed for life last month over an “horrific” murder after being hired by a drug dealer as an enforcer.
He will be in his 70s when he is released from prison for his savage killing of Shafiul Islam in his Newport flat in November 2019.
The hulking Peters, 42, was recruited by drug boss Perrie Dunwell to rob his much smaller victim in the Shaftesbury area of the city.
It emerged during his trial at Newport Crown Court that Peters was an aspiring musician who went by the name of Sax Coke.
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Some of his songs posted to YouTube glorify the criminal life and drug dealing.
The jury heard Peters, who used his rap name Sax Coke, has a young daughter. Picture: Wales News Service
In one video, he stood outside Cardiff Prison boasting of spending 10 years behind bars and saying "f*** HMP".
He rapped: "I've been sat in jail putting pen to paper, 10 years was long but my mind stayed strong.
"I was stuck on them wings with those killers and lifers but I made it through fam. I'm a born survivor."
Peters will be in his 70s before he is eligible for parole. Picture: Wales News Service
Peters had form for violence and had served years behind bars.
After he was convicted of murder and conspiracy to rob, Timothy Evans, prosecuting, told Newport Crown Court he had 19 convictions for 51 offences.
You slashed his face with a broken bottle
These included robbery, inflicting grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and possessing an offensive weapon.
Peters, of Dros-y-Morfa, Rumney, Cardiff, battered drug dealer Mr Islam with an empty Kopparberg cider bottle before dumping his body in a cupboard.
Murder victim Shafiul Islam
Jailing him for life, with a minimum tariff of 33 years, the judge, Mrs Justice Jefford, said: “What happened in Shafiul Islam’s flat was horrific.
“The flat itself was turned upside down. By Peters’ own admission he searched everywhere for what he wanted.
The killers, left to right, Euan Peters, Perrie Dunwell and Conlan Dunnion
“But he also viciously attacked Shafiul Islam, 5ft 8in and lightly built, no doubt to get him to reveal where he had cash or drugs hidden away.
“Euan Peters hit Shafiul Islam over the head twice with the cider bottle until the bottle broke and then slashed his face with the bottle.
“The forensic evidence at trial was that the attack began in the living room and continued into the bedroom and Shafiul was eventually left unconscious, but breathing, in a cupboard in the hallway.
“Euan Peters’ own evidence was that he got away with about £1,000 and a PS4. He wasn’t happy with the night’s takings.”
Turning to Peters, she told him: “The planning for the robbery included involving you as the hard man, arranging easy access for you, and sending you in to carry out the robbery.
“That was the plan that put you in the position to murder Shafiul Islam in the course of a robbery.
“There was further a degree of mental and physical suffering inflicted on Shafiul Islam before his death.
“This was a sustained attack in at least two rooms of the flat with Shafiul ending up collapsed in the hallway.
"There was evidence that he tried to defend himself.
“Before he was rendered unconscious he must have been terrified, and rightly so, by this ferocious attack by a much bigger man.”
Peters’ partners in crime, Dunwell, 33, of Cold Mill Road, Newport, and Conlan Dunnion, 23, of Maesglas Avenue, Maesglas, Newport, were found guilty of manslaughter and conspiracy to rob.
Dunwell was jailed for 13 years and nine months and Dunnion for nine years and six months.
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