The prosecution in a murder trial involving a man from Bristol has made an appeal for a key witness to come forward.

Paul Anthony Flavell, 46, denies stabbing Jan Yuri Silvenskas to death at his home in Benidorm on August 20, 1996.

Fellow defendants Roy Davis, 61, from Wolverhampton, Simon Fredericks, 45, from London, and Mark Griffiths, 38, from Preston, also deny the charge.

The four also deny wounding the dead man's grandmother, who was also stabbed.

A panel of three judges sitting in the Palace of Justice in Alicante have told the prosecution they have to produce the witness, who has so far refused to come forward, this week or the trial may collapse.

The state prosecutor said that four protected witnesses had been due to give evidence but that none had shown up for the trial.

Three were in Britain and the court was told they had not received notice of the trial. The other was in Spain but had failed to turn up.

When the trial opened all four defendants told the court they were not present when the killing took place.

Davis admitted that he and Silvenskas, a Russian, had been business partners and had fallen out.

He agreed they were in conflict and had taken legal action against each other, but he denied prosecution allegations that he had approached the other accused and asked them to help him kill his former partner.

Flavell admitted writing a letter and making a statement to an investigating judge confessing his part in the alleged crime and implicating the others, but he said that he had been wrong and had retracted the statement.

Griffiths said he had been at a campsite at Altea, near Benidorm, when the killing took place. He was with a friend and his then girlfriend, the court was told.

Fredericks claimed he was in Malaga, some 300 miles away, at the time.

The lawyer asked for an adjournment so that the missing witnesses could be served with orders to attend court, but the judges refused the application and told the prosecution to produce the Spanish-based witness.