AN ILLEGAL immigrant plunged a meat cleaver twice into another man's body in a car park in broad daylight, a court heard.

Sejit Balta, 24, attacked Hassain Dag from behind outside a kebab takeaway in Front Street, Acomb.

He twice stabbed him with a knife with a 20 cm blade, said Simon Kealey, prosecuting at Leeds Crown Court.

Balta then went to Fulford Road Police Station and handed himself in, leaving 45-year-old Mr Dag with major injuries.

He told police he had stabbed his "friend" over a "problem in Turkey".

The court heard he had taken the meat cleaver from the kebab shop. Balta, of Grampian House, North Mall, London, was jailed for four years after admitting wounding with intent.

He will be deported to Turkey at the end of his sentence.

Judge Ian Dobkin said he would have got eight years if the authorities had not decided to kick him out of the country.

His barrister, Simon Reevell, said Balta had entered the UK illegally, but had worked hard since then.

He was not a normally violent man.

Mr Kealey said Balta was a second cousin of Mr Dag's wife.

The two men had known each other for many years and had not had any fall-out or disagreement before the attack. Mr Dag used to own the kebab shop and had visited it on June 24 to collect rent from another property.

At 3pm, he was cleaning the windows of his car in the car park behind the shop when Balta arrived on foot and stabbed him in the abdomen from behind without a word.

Then, when Mr Dag told him to drop the knife, Balta stabbed him again, this time in the chest, and ran off.

The knife went into Mr Dag's stomach and he spent eight days in hospital.

Mr Reevell said Balta bitterly regretted his actions, which were caused by a loss of temper over a matter between the two men.

He would have a difficult time in prison because he did not speak English.

Updated: 10:59 Tuesday, October 04, 2005