Gjerji Mungiovi-Cuka said he was not a member of the vice gang

Gjergj Mungiovi-Cuka, 19, denied trafficking the 21-year-old as part of a gang that had "bought" her for �5,000 to work in three brothels in Cardiff.

The woman told Cardiff Crown Court the gang threatened to kill her if she ran.

The friend, Akil Likcani, has admitted trafficking and controlling a prostitute. The third man is at large.

Giving evidence in his defence on Tuesday, Mr Mungiovi-Cuka, of Caldicot, south Wales, told the court he had signed a tenancy agreement on the flat for fellow Albanian Likcani and the man, a Kosovan he knew only as "Benny".

Mr Mungiovi-Cuka, who came to Britain aged 13 smuggled on a lorry and was then adopted by a Cardiff couple, said Likcani had pressured him into it because his friend did not have official papers of his own.

Paperwork

The court has heard the woman was based in the apartment with Likcani and Benny - who the defendant said he thought was the woman's boyfriend - while she was made to work in the brothels.

The prosecution has claimed the woman had to have sex with up to nine customers a day at the brothels, named as Executive Sauna in Whitchurch Road, No 19 in Bute Street and Abygale's massage parlour in Woodville Road.

But Mr Mungiovi-Cuka told the court he would not have signed the paperwork for the flat if he had known the other two men were controlling a prostitute.

The woman said the brothels and Benny shared her earnings

He said: "I never would have done it if I have known, even without knowing that I had doubts. But Akil had nowhere to go and when he kept asking me I felt sorry and I did it."

The woman, giving evidence via a Russian translator, had previously told the court that the defendant had driven her from London to Cardiff with the two other men.

She said he had known she was working as a prostitute and that he had taken her in his car to and from the three brothels.

Mr Mungiovi-Cuka, who is studying for an NVQ in carpentry, denied knowing she was working as a prostitute.

He told the court that he gave a lift to Benny and the woman on three occasions, the pair left the car together and only Benny returned to the vehicle.

Civil war

But he said he but did not know that the woman was being dropped off a few minutes' walk from the massage parlours.

He said when he did eventually ask Benny where the woman was going, he said Benny told him: "It is not good for you to know".

"After that I gave him no more lifts because I did not feel comfortable," he said.

The court heard Mr Mungiovi-Cuka had arrived in the country after his aunt put him on a lorry to escape civil war. The court heard that he did not know if his parents are alive or dead.

Last week the woman claimed she was flown to Heathrow airport from the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in January of this year and bought for �5,000 by three "Albanian" men, from a man she knew only as Nick.

She said her sex clients would pay around �50, of which half would go to the brothel and the other half to Benny.

The woman claims Benny and Likcani, who will be sentenced after the trial, beat her, with the latter threatening to kill her if she tried to escape.

The trial continues.