A doctor accused of bludgeoning another doctor to death claimed the victim was killed by an armed intruder.
Nagraj Nalloori told the city’s Crown Court that he begged for the victim’s life and was forced to declare his love for the woman by writing in blood on the wall of the Birmingham house they shared.
Nalloori, 25, has denied murdering Samirajya Vempala on May 6 this year.
Michael Burrows QC, prosecuting, said the defendant and the 23-year-old victim had trained together in India before coming to Birmingham where they were studying for a masters degree in health studies at Wolverhampton University.
He said they lived together, with other doctors, at a property in Montague Road, Handsworth and that it was likely that Nalloori loved Miss Vempala, but she did not welcome his attentions.
Mr Burrows said Nalloori had struck Miss Vempala repeatedly with an iron bar and that the two of them were found in the victim’s room.
Nalloori said that they loved each other and hoped to marry one day.
He said on May 6 he had heard a knock at the door and then the sound of Miss Vempala screaming.
“I immediately rushed downstairs. I went straight to her bedroom and when I opened the door I saw an intruder pointing a gun at me,” he said.
Nalloori said he had begged the man, who was masked and dressed all in black, to leave and that the intruder had hit Miss Vempala several times with an iron bar on the head.
At one point, he said, he had tried to escape from the room but the man had pushed a bed against a door.
He said the man had slashed his wrists and neck with a knife and that he eventually lost consciousness.
Case continues.
