A man was yesterday convicted of killing his “best friend” by stabbing him at a block of flats in Menzieshill.
Aldis Minakovskis, a dad-of-two, and Aigars Upenieks had travelled to Dundee together in 2015 from Latvia.
They worked for a charity before finding jobs at A1 car wash on East Dock Street.
Mr Upenieks’s wife Jolanta arrived later in the year.
The three were spending the night of December 22 together and drank alcohol at a friend’s flat on Thurso Crescent. When Mr Upenieks fell asleep around 3am on December 23, his wife and Minakovskis went to get more alcohol.
Mr Upenieks later woke up and was said to have made an angry phone call to Minakovskis, accusing him of having an affair with Mrs Upenieks.
Minakovskis returned to the block alone and the pair ended up in a physical struggle.
The court previously heard claims from Minakovskis that Mr Upenieks had put a knee on his throat and restricted his breathing, to the point where he thought he was going to die.
At this stage, Minakovskis said he reached out to grab anything he could find and lashed out at Mr Upenieks in an attempt to get him off.
He used a knife to stab his victim three times, leaving four puncture wounds. The court heard that Mr Upenieks then ran out of the flat and was found on his knees in the stairwell saying: “Aldis, what have you done?”
The jury rejected Minakovskis’s special defence of self-defence but found there was no intention to kill or “wicked recklessness”.
Minakovskis will be sentenced on March 10 at the High Court in Edinburgh.
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