Runaway is jailed for murdering carer, 62
AN ILLEGAL immigrant has been jailed for at least 26 years for murdering a carer after slipping through the hands of authorities at least six times in two years.
Homeless Hani Khalaf, 22, survived on the streets of Britain by stealing food and clothes after arriving in the back of a lorry posing as a Syrian asylum seeker, the Old Bailey heard.
He was bailed for shoplifting hours before he kicked, punched and stamped 62-year-old Jairo Medina to death near Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park on August 11 last year.
He stole the carer’s cash and his mobile phone, which he tried to sell on hours later.
Following a retrial, the Egyptian national was found guilty of murder and he was jailed for life with a minimum of 26 years.
Judge Wendy Joseph QC said Khalaf was sent back into the community time and again because of a failure to deport him and Mr Medina paid for it with his life.
She said: “It is clear that Hani Khalaf, having absconded, came to the attention of authorities on at least six occasions.
“On each, he was re-bailed because they could not make arrangements for securing his deportation in a reasonable amount of time.”
The result was that Khalaf, with no way of “lawfully maintaining himself”, was sent out in the community again and again and told to report to authorities, which he never did.
The court heard that Khalaf is likely to be deported to serve his sentence in Egypt once he is no longer classed as a category A prisoner.