Seven men plotted for two weeks to kill Qadir Ahmed, a convicted drug supplier, and then beat him to death in Keighley, a Court has been told.

Mr Ahmed, 24, of Gordon Street, was ambushed near to the Victoria Park roundabout on the evening of February 13, last year, and murdered, said prosecutor Jennifer Kershaw.

Zulfiqar Asif, 23, of Bradford Road, Keighley; Amjad Ali Azam, 21, of Surrey Street, Keighley; Mohammed Iqbal, 24, of Salt Street, Manningham; Parveez Ashraf, 26, of Victoria Park View, Keighley; Zahir Bashir, 27, of Emily Street, Keighley; Mohammed Rafiq, 21, of Chatsworth Street, Keighley; and Atif Younis, 22, of Buxton Street, Keighley; have pleaded not guilty at Leeds Crown Court to conspiring to murder Mr Ahmed.

The trial opened on Monday and it is expected to last at least six weeks.

Mrs Kershaw said: "The attack amounted to an armed ambush. It depended on planning; it was organised, comprehensive, resourceful and in the end lethal."

She said the accused bought second-hand cars, a mask and gloves to carry out the attack, and bought weapons, including axes and hammers from the B&Q store in Keighley, only a short distance away from the scene of the attack.

A Rover car, possibly used to run Mr Ahmed down, was later set on fire two hours after he was killed.

Mrs Kershaw said: "His attackers lay in wait in their vehicles in the dark. They had armed themselves with wooden poles or sticks, hammers and at least one axe.

"The vehicles were armed weapons in as much as they were used to ram Mr Ahmed's car.

"He ran, but because of a limp, was caught up and grossly outnumbered. He was knocked down and beaten to death.

She said Mr Ahmed had a conviction for supplying class A drugs for which he had served a prison sentence.

On release he had set himself up as a security guard and on the evening of his death had been playing soccer at Keighley Leisure Centre, leaving just before 11pm.

A car repairer told the court on Tuesday how he had bought ski masks for one of the accused men.

Car body paneller Jonathan Allen told the jury that his former friend, defendant Zulfiqar Asif, known as Zulfi, had called into his workplace -- Mojo's garage, in Spearhead Way, Keighley -- to ask his boss if he could take half an hour off to go into Keighley.

He said Asif arrived in a red Rover car with passenger Mohammed Iqbal, known as Nipper.

Mrs Kershaw asked Mr Allen why he had been taken into Keighley.

"To get some ski masks," he said. "Zulfi asked if he could borrow me for half an hour. Zulfi gave me some money and told me to go into a shop and get some ski masks."

Mr Allen said they parked outside Speak's camping and outdoor pursuits shop in the town centre.

When asked by Mrs Kershaw why Asif wanted the ski masks, Mr Allen said: "He said he was going off-roading. I thought he was going to go off-roading because he had some Land Rovers. He said get about six or seven."

He said they went into a few shops in Keighley but he could not remember which ones.

"Zulfi gave me some money, I went into Speak's, bought some ski masks, came back out, gave Zulfi his change and a bag of ski masks," said Mr Allen. He said Asif then drove him back to work.

Mr Allen also told the jury he knew people called Raf, Z, Taf and Gangee and had seen them all together at Mojo's garage.

He said while they were talking together in "their language", he repaired a silver Rover, belonging to Nipper and Zulfi, from which the front end was hanging off.

"It looked like it was in a front-end bump," he said.

"I just put it all back together and tried to straighten it up as best I could."

He said the following day he worked on a Honda Civic, which had a slice in the back quarter panel.

"A slice means something sharp has hit it -- something like a hammer, something with a sharp blade on it," he told the jury. "It was quite deep and open. It went through two skins of metal."

Giving evidence on Wednesday, Mr Allen admitted to the jury that he had lied to police about injuries he received around the time of the victim's murder.

Alistair Webster QC, defending Asif, told the jury that Mr Allen had also been arrested -- on February 15, 2002 -- for conspiracy to murder.

He said when Mr Allen was arrested, he struggled to get into the police car and told a police officer he had painful legs, as he had been knocked down by a car in West Lane, at about 11pm the previous evening.

Mr Allen told the jury: "That's wrong. I was not in a car accident at all." When asked by Judge Mr Justice Henriques if that was what he had told police, he said: "I may have said that, I might've been frightened."

Mr Allen later told police he had been attacked on Thursday, February 14, by James Uttley, a friend of his girlfriend, and that he had been threatened by Mr Uttley that if he told police he would be attacked again.

In an interview given to police by Mr Allen after his arrest, he denied any involvement in Qadir Ahmed's murder and said he did not know him or had ever heard of him.

He then told the jury he knew Mr Ahmed as a friend but that he only knew him by his nickname.

The trial continues.