A man boasted about killing his neighbour after stabbing him once in the stomach, a court heard today.

Martin Joyce, 22, denies murdering Afghan refugee Enayit Khalili in Oxford in March last year.

Oxford Crown Court was told that Joyce, of Larch Hill, Bradford, Yorkshire, had been staying at fiancee Lisa Maughan’s family home in Fiennes Road, Rose Hill, opposite Mr Khalili’s home.

Adrian Redgrave, prosecuting, said Miss Maughan’s sister Rosie saw Joyce arguing with a man on the doorstep of Mr Khalili’s house some time before the alleged murder.

Mr Redgrave added: “Rosie heard the sound of this defendant shouting. She saw that he was at the front door of the house opposite, as she puts it, roaring and shouting. After a short time he came back saying ‘I’m going to kill that foreigner one day’.”

Mr Redgrave said two or three weeks after Mr Khalili’s death, Joyce boasted to his future brother-in-law.

He said: ”This accused was boasting he had stabbed some guy at the house facing his mother-in-law’s.”

Mr Redgrave said Joyce later told Miss Maughan, who was by that time his wife, that he had killed a neighbour. He said Joyce had told her: “I got away with it and I will kill again.”

The jury heard Mr Khalili, 26, a cleaner at Cowley police station, died from a single stab wound to the stomach.

Mr Redgrave said: “The prosecution case is that this defendant is a man who is given to the threat and the use of serious violence. This was one deliberate, ruthless stab wound.”

Fellow Afghan Khodad Rezaie, who lived with Mr Khalili, said his housemate woke him after he had been stabbed.

He added: “He was very weak. I was very frightened when I saw him. He was mentioning the police and an ambulance. At that time I thought he had been shot.”

Another housemate, Asadi Hazrat, said Mr Khalili had told him about a row with two boys in the street days before he died.

Mr Hazrat said: “He said ‘You know the opposite neighbours, they have thrown something into our house’.

The case continues.