Senthamil Thillainathan, 21, was part of a gang which brutally attacked the teenager and killed him in a park, the jury at the Old Bailey was told.

He and an accomplice also axed to death a 25-year-old in a revenge killing.

The park murder in February last year was allegedly motiveless and involved four men, including Thillainathan.

After beating 18-year-old Supenthar Ramachandran, they set fire to his body and left him in a pool of his own blood.

His fire-blistered body was found the next day in Roe Park, Kingsbury, north-west London.

'Sheer cruelty'

The dead man, from Wembley, north-west London, had been repeatedly picked on by the other Sri Lankans while they were eating in a Tamil restaurant.

They made him pay the bill before bundling him into a car against his will.

Aftab Jafferjee, prosecuting, told the jury not to look for any logic or sense in why he was killed but accept the murder was "sheer cruelty".

A year before, Thillainathan had axed Arvinthan Muthukumarasamy, 25, across the head allegedly in revenge for damaging a car.

Exposed skull

The dead man was repeatedly hit over the head with the axe, exposing the bone of his skull. He was also repeatedly stabbed.

An accomplice, Sivivageethan Punniyamoorthy, 22, was convicted of the murder at an earlier trial. The jury was unable to agree a verdict in Thillainathan's case and he was retried at the same time as the park murder.

The case was one of the longest seen at the Old Bailey and started last November.

Thillainathan, of Chatsworth Avenue, Wembley, had denied both murders.

Three other Tamils, Pradeep Sivanesan, 18, Kannan Sivakumar, 30, both from Wembley, and a 17-year-old who cannot be named by court order, were convicted of the park murder of Mr Ramachandran. They had denied the murder.