Mohammed Ashrafi, pictured, (50) claimed that after the “miracle”, he came to the UK to help the “poor and sick”.
Ashrafi is accused of cheating vulnerable victims out of £650,000 in a series of alleged scams in Leicester.
The prosecution claims he pretended to be a devotee of Indian spiritual master Sai Baba, and professed to have special powers that could help people win lottery jackpots, in return for payments.
Giving evidence in his own defence last Friday, Ashrafi told a jury at Leicester Crown Court that he was formerly a successful businessman in India, before being kidnapped by “hooligans” in his homeland, in 2000. They detained him for seven hours before shooting him in the spine, he said.
Ashrafi told the court: “I was unable to walk for four years. I met a lot of doctors in Bombay and they said I was paralysed.”
He said he then sought help from a Sai Baba devotee, Shri Krishna Das, who prayed for him for 11 days.
“Straight away, after 11 days, I started to walk. It was a big miracle in my life.,” said Ashrafi.
He told the jury he too became a devotee of Sai Baba, to help others.
The defendant claimed he later came to the UK to help the “poor and sick”.
Ashrafi, formerly of Babingley Avenue, off Parker Drive, Leicester, denies 14 counts of fraud, involving 18 alleged victims, by falsely claiming that in return for payments for materials required for prayer, such deer musk, they would win the lottery, between January and April 2014.
He also denies blackmailing a couple out of £50,000, last February. The blackmail allegedly involved Ashrafi drugging a woman, who became unconscious, before taking a “compromising” video recording and threatening to put it on the internet.
The trial continues.
