A KNIFEMAN stabbed a teenager during a row outside a takeaway - then went back inside to wait for a pizza as his victim bled to death.

Mahmud Maksoudian also attacked a second boy leaving him with critical injuries, Manchester Crown Court heard.

The incident happened outside Ashy's Takeaway in Plodder Lane, Farnworth, on Friday, August 17, 2007.

Andrew Holland, aged 16, died after suffering a single stab wound to the neck.

Maksoudian, aged 22, of Madams Wood Road, Little Hulton, was arrested in the takeaway minutes later by police who were called to the scene by a member of the public.

Andrew Menary, QC, prosecuting, said Andrew and 16-year-old Curtis McAtee - who suffered non-fatal knife injuries - were among a group of five friends who were walking down Plodder Lane at around 10.30pm.

Mr Menary said that as the group walked past the takeaway, Andrew crossed the road and headed towards the point the defendant was standing. Maksoudian had gone to the takeaway with his girlfriend to order some food.

Witnesses saw Andrew waving towards the defendant as if he knew him. But the two men did not know each other and there was then a heated exchange of words which led to a fight, the court heard.

"Suddenly Mahmud Maksoudian took a knife out of his pocket and flicked it forwards in order to open the blade," said Mr Menary. "As he was flicking it, he dropped the knife on the floor but quickly picked it up again despite a customer in the shop asking him what he was doing and telling him to put it down."

The court then heard Andrew was stabbed once to the left hand side of his neck just above the collar bone. He was then seen to punch the defendant back before moving away to the other side of the road, where he eventually collapsed.

Curtis was also stabbed by the defendant who grabbed hold of his jacket near to the neck and plunged the knife into his left hand side. He too crossed back over the road before collapsing on the pavement.

The emergency services were called and both boys were given emergency treatment at the scene. Andrew later died at hospital.

Mr Menary said: "When the police arrived on the scene, the defendant was still at Ashy's Takeaway waiting for his food to be prepared. He had by this time thrown the knife into a garden in Plodder Lane."

When questioned by police, he said some youths had verbally abused him while he was waiting for his pizza and attacked him with a knife. He was later arrested at the scene by the police.

A post mortem examination later confirmed that Andrew died of a stab wound to the neck which severed a major blood vessel before penetrating his left lung, as a result of which he bled to death.

Curtis was left fighting for his life but surgeons were able to repair damage to his lung.

When interviewed by police, Maksoudian initially claimed he was acting in self defence and that he had picked up the knife when it had fallen out of the pocket of one of his attackers.

He said he was using it to threaten them to scare them away, but at a later interview he accepted he had been in possession of the knife.

Mr Menary said: "It may be that Andrew Holland should never have crossed the road in the first place and should have moved on when told to do so by the defendant.

"It may be that his friends became involved when they needn't have done so, but what is clear, say the prosecution, is that there was no justification for this defendant to produce a knife that night at all, and no justification to use it not just once, but twice, against these unarmed young men.

"It is a tragic case, we say, of a man using a senseless and wholly unjustified level of aggression against two lads in circumstances where he did not need to use anything like that appalling amount of violence."

Maksoudian is charged with murder and wounding. He denies both counts.