Caught on camera, drug dealer’s brutal machete attack
AFTER SLASHING VICTIM WITH TWO-FOOT BLADE IN STREET
A DRUG dealer who bragged that Cheetham Hill was ‘his area’ launched a terrifying machete attack as horrified members of the public passed by.
Mujtaba Saeed-Ahmed, 22, slashed at his victim following a bust-up.
The victim had confronted SaeedAhmed believing he had his girlfriend working for him.
The pair argued on the phone before Saeed-Ahmed arrived on Bury Old Road in a taxi, armed with a fearsome two-foot long machete.
At around 7pm on a Monday as members of the public watched on in horror, Saeed-Ahmed then hit him twice, and another two times after he fell to the floor.
The victim suffered a serious wound to his back, which caused a punctured lung, as well as sustaining injuries to his hands as he tried to protect himself.
Now Saeed-Ahmed, who said he ‘always’ carried a weapon for selfdefence, has been jailed for seven years.
The shocking attack was caught on CCTV, and more footage showed the aftermath of the stabbing, as the victim tried to stop his girlfriend leaving in a taxi with Saeed-Ahmed.
Manchester Crown Court heard how the 37-year-old victim had finished work and saw his girlfriend on Bury New Road, on August 2.
“He was concerned because he believed, rightly or wrongly, she had been dealing drugs on behalf of a dealer which he believed to be this defendant,” prosecutor Duncan Wilcock said.
Saeed-Ahmed threatened the victim on the phone, telling him to ‘keep out’ of Cheetham Hill, which a judge said he’d described as ‘your area.’
Arriving shortly after in a taxi, SaeedAhmed walked over and began attacking him. The victim chased after him, as Saeed-Ahmed went to get back into a taxi. Saeed-Ahmed started ‘swinging’ the machete towards the victim as he tried to stop them leaving, but no further injuries were inflicted.
“Although they were not life threatening injuries, they certainly could have been,” Recorder Jeremy Lasker told Saeed-Ahmed. “It was a short-lived but brutal attack.”
The victim suffered a deep wound to his back, which caused a punctured lung and a fractured rib, as well as cuts to his fingers which damaged tendons.
“He feels like he has been given an extra life,” Mr Wilcock said of the victim. “He feels so lucky that he is not dead.”
Saeed-Ahmed had been in court about nine months earlier for drug dealing offences.
A judge took the ‘unusual’ step of not jailing him because the offences happened about two years earlier.
Saeed-Ahmed’s barrister said he had been an ‘impressive’ young man who had taken on teaching roles due to his knowledge of the Quran.
He later became estranged from his family after a falling out and descended into crime, Joshua Bowker said.
Saeed-Ahmed, of Halliwell Lane, Cheetham Hill, was jailed for seven years after pleading guilty to wounding with intent; possession of a blade; and being in breach of a suspended sentence.