A MAN who stabbed his flatmate to death after a row over unpaid bills has been jailed for life.
Grzegorz Gamla attacked fellow Pole Maciej Ciania, 34, at a property in Leith, Edinburgh, in January last year. Gamla later fled back to his homeland before being arrested and brought back to Scotland to face justice.
The 26-year-old was ordered to serve a minimum 19 years in jail when he appeared at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday.
Lord Pentland told Gamla: "It is clear this was a sus- tained and savage onslaught pressed home with ruthless determination."
The judge added the victim's relatives had suffered "terrible anguish".
Gamla – who had been convicted after a trial last month – will be deported when he is eventually released.
The court heard how Mr Ciania, who had lived in Edinburgh for 10 years and considered the capital his second home, was stabbed and slashed 37 times after a "simmering dispute" over unpaid household bills.
Gamla soon escaped from the property in the capital's Leith area after their flatmate discovered the corpse.
Gamla had used power tools to make a box to hide the body.
He initially took a ferry from Stranraer to Belfast before moving to Dublin and then flying to Warsaw.
Gamla was arrested in Poland and returned to Scotland on an extradition warrant.
The killer was also found guilty of assaulting Mr Ciania on a previous occasion.
Brian Gilfedder, defending, told the court yesterday said: "It appears there was a love-hate relationship between the two men.
"There certainly was a simmering background, but the accused never believed it would come to this."
Following the verdict in December, the victim's sister, Aleksandra Poprawska, said: "Nothing will bring Maciej back but we are relieved to know the person who committed this terrible crime will probably never hurt anyone again and no other family will suffer like we do."
After his body was found, more than 60 Lothian and Borders officers were involved in the investigation.
A jury found Gamla guilty, rejecting a claim he had been acting in self-defence.
Forensic scientists found traces which suggested three knives had been used in the attack.
Gamla's DNA was discovered on a mop handle and Mr Ciania's blood was also found on the mop, suggesting there had been an attempt to clean up.
He was forced to leave the crime scene when Darius Reivytis, 29, and his Spanish girlfriend Beatriz Del Valle, 26, returned from a trip to the Highlands.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article