Teenager guilty of murder after knifing boy to death
JURY REJECTS KILLER’S ‘SELF DEFENCE’ CLAIM
A TEENAGER has been convicted of murder after stabbing a boy with a combat knife outside a shopping centre.
The 17-year-old, who can’t be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of murdering 18-year-old Abdikarim Abdalla Ahmed in Bury by a jury who returned a majority verdict of 10-2.
The trial heard the defendant, from Bolton, stabbed Mr Ahmed, described as a ‘loving’ and ‘caring’ person, once in the chest outside the Mill Gate shopping centre on the afternoon of Friday, March 11.
He claimed he’d been acting in self defence after Mr Ahmed threw a punch. The jury rejected that defence.
The boy now faces a sentence of detention under Her Majesty’s Pleasure, the equivalent of a life sentence for criminals under the age of 18. He is due to be sentenced in October, although a date has not yet been set.
Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard Mr Ahmed was stabbed with ‘severe’ force. He died about 90 minutes after paramedics rushed to a nearby bar, where he had desperately sought help while clutching his chest. Footage showed killer and victim exchange a fist bump hours before the murder.
Violence erupted in Bury town centre at about 3.21pm, when Mr Ahmed was punched by a 15-year-old boy.
Mr Ahmed called his older brother, 19-year-old Faisal Ahmed and the pair met in Bury before they began looking for those responsible.
Faisal Ahmed said his brother wanted to ‘slap’ them. About half-an-hour later, they saw the defendant with the 15-year-old and two other young men.
Abdikarim Abdalla Ahmed threw a punch at the defendant, who then armed himself with a 10cm combat knife and stabbed him in the chest, below the left armpit.
He stabbed him with such force that it cut through one of his ribs. The defendant fled and threw the knife in a bin, before taking a taxi to Bolton and disposing of some of his clothes. He was arrested at his home at about midnight. Jurors were told that the defendant ‘routinely carried knives.’
In 2019, he received a caution for carrying a knife in public. The following year, he received ‘convictions for offences involving use of a knife in public places.’ Just 10 days before the killing, a youth worker saw a knife fall out of the defendant’s pocket during a meeting with him.
Two days prior to Mr Ahmed’s death the defendant had texted a friend, the 15-year-old who punched Mr Ahmed and said ‘let’s go cop a shank’ – slang for a knife.
At trial, the defendant claimed he was acting in self defence and denied murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter.
Prosecutors claimed the defendant’s reaction to having a punch thrown at him was ‘out of all proportion,’ ‘excessive’ and ‘disproportionate.’
On the second day of the trial he pleaded guilty to possessing the combat knife, a charge he’d previously denied. Prosecutors described his claim he found it in Mr Ahmed’s hoodie while being put in a headlock as ‘ludicrous.’