Attacking police in Britain with a hammer, Afghan killer whose case sums up madness of ‘justice‘ in the EU
A MURDERER allowed into Britain unchecked from Holland was given a life sentence yesterday for a hammer attack on two police officers, one a woman. Jamshid Piruz, 34, originally from Afghanistan, arrived here after serving time in Holland for decapitating
HIS journey began in warstricken Afghanistan. It ended in a life or death struggle with British police officers outside a tool shed in suburban West Sussex. Along the way a woman died in the most barbaric of circumstances. A female constable could so easily have become a second fatality.
The story of convicted murderer Jamshid Piruz is as perplexing as it is bloody and tragic. It should serve as a parable for Britain’s present relationship with the eU – and highlights so many of the concerns among voters that led to Brexit.
It also encapsulates failings in europe’s justice system and the open borders which too often leave us exposed to dangerous foreign criminals.
Consider that even after he was convicted of murder in Holland, Piruz could not be deported back to Afghanistan. He was then able to travel unhindered to Britain, where the authorities were not alerted by their Dutch counterparts to his violent history.
Then, even though he assaulted a member of airline staff at Gatwick, he was freed to attack two police officers with a hammer. And finally, when he came before a court in Sussex, the translator provided at taxpayers’ expense failed to turn up, thus incurring further court costs.
Piruz – born in central Asia, jailed in the Netherlands and sent to hospital with mental health issues in Sweden – is now the problem of the British state.
Yesterday he was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of six years, for grievous bodily harm with intent. The police who tackled him thought they, too, were going to die. At least now he is in a secure place, albeit at British taxpayers’ expense; it will cost around £40,000 a year to keep him behind bars.
Piruz had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder with ‘associated psychosis’ as a result of seeing his parents executed by the Taliban when he was 11, Lewes Crown Court heard.
Aged 16, the orphan had travelled from Afghanistan to Holland, where he claimed and was given asylum.
He first came to the attention of the authorities in 2003 when he was convicted of common assault, and was again arrested in 2006 for drink-driving. But it is the ghastly events of the evening of June 15, 2006, around which this story pivots.
According to Dutch court records, police were called to a maisonette in Poldermolenweg, a street in the bleak Amsterdam overspill town of Almere. There they found the body of a Chinese woman who had suffered a savage knife wound to her neck which had all but decapitated her. The name of the victim was withheld under Dutch privacy laws.
THeCID report said: ‘ The victim was lying on her back in a blanket. We saw that her throat was totally cut through. We saw that the door of her room was forced and damaged while opening (it was locked).’
There was no doubt who had committed the murder; her landlord, Jamshid Piruz.
The victim’s ex-husband told police that she had called him that evening to say Piruz had locked her in her room for three hours and taken her phone. At 6pm – an hour before the killing – Piruz had unlocked his tenant’s door and returned her mobile. She tried calling her ex-husband a number of times. When the ex-husband tried to call back later in the evening there was no answer so he went to the property to investigate.
When he rang the door, Piruz answered and followed him up to the victim’s room. The ex-husband found her body wrapped in a coverlet and, fearing for his own safety, fled. When he returned with work colleagues, Piruz had escaped through a window.
After his arrest, the Afghan made a full confession to police. He said: ‘That day I had wanted to talk to the woman. She said, “Go away, you stink”. So I took away her phone and her keys. Later I gave back those things. I returned to my own room and suddenly I put a knife in my hands. I walked to the door of the woman’s room. I kicked in the door. I took her, I cut her. I cut her throat at the front ... I put the woman in a blanket, and knotted it up. Then I cleaned up.
‘After that, the Chinese man comes in, opens up the bedroom door and sees his ex-wife. I’m in my own room. Then I opened up the door of the balcony, closed it again and left.’
In August 2007, Piruz appeared in court charged with murder. The defence claimed that Piruz was mentally ill and therefore could not be convicted of murder. This was rejected by the prosecution. experts from the Dutch Institute for Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology had decided there was no proof of psychiatric disorder; therefore the accused was fully accountable for his actions.
The court records state: ‘From this behaviour of the accused, the court concludes that the killing was not the result of an instantaneous violent emotion, but a decision to do so. She was killed with premeditation.’
Piruz was found guilty of murder. The judge said: ‘The accused ended the life of his tenant in a horrific way, by cutting her throat with a knife. After this he cold-bloodedly cleaned up to erase traces of his deed. His behaviour demonstrates disrespect for the life of another.’
Piruz was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. He was ordered to pay the ex-husband more than 6,000 euros towards for the cremation of the victim’s ashes and their transportation to China.
Given the circumstances of the murder and Piruz’s subsequent behaviour, the prosecution’s satisfaction that he was perfectly sane seems questionable.
The Daily Mail has learned that Piruz had also been treated in a ‘mental health facility’ in Sweden. He had suffered a breakdown while visiting an aunt who had emigrated to Scandinavia having cared for Piruz as a child in Afghanistan. This episode is believed to have taken place shortly after Piruz’s release from prison in June
2014. He had been given parole having served two thirds of his sentence. He was then returned to court in Holland to be sent back to jail having been found in a ‘confused state’ in the street, when he admitted to having taken illegal drugs. The court set him free again.
A spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Justice explained that having already been granted permanent residency in the Netherlands there were no legal grounds upon which he could be deported back to Afghanistan. Nor would there be any serious restraint on his ability to travel to other EU countries, such as Britain.
Piruz also has relatives living in the UK. It was in order to visit them that he arrived unnoticed in England on December 29, 2014. While staying with his family here, his behaviour became increasingly erratic until on January 3 he demanded to be driven to Gatwick, a day early, to return to Holland.
He missed his flight the following day and got into an altercation with a female member of Easy Jet staff.
PIrUzspat in her face, police were called and he was arrested. He was released having appeared before local magistrates, where he pleaded guilty to common assault and was ordered to pay £ 100 compensation.
The same week, police were called to deal with a ‘suspicious’ character seen in the Crawley neighbourhood of Langley Green which lies only four miles from the airport. It was Piruz again. A pursuit began and the Afghan was eventually found and cornered in a tool shed by a number of officers including a dog handler and a firearms team.
Armed with a hammer, Piruz emerged from the shed and despite being hit by a Taser – his heavy coat protected him from the 50,000-volt shock – charged at a female constable. Her screams rang out as she attempted to fend off his blows with her baton. In the ensuing melee another officer was hit twice on the head with the hammer by Piruz before the latter was restrained.
Incredibly, British police were only made aware of Piruz’s criminal history when a family member filed a missing persons report after he missed his flight on January 4. The relative told the Metropolitan Police about Piruz’s murder conviction and subsequent sentence. The London force then contacted their colleagues in Sussex. By then it was too late.
Over the past year, Piruz has appeared a number of times in court where he has often presented a disturbed and disturbing figure, rocking backwards and forward in the dock and making strange noises.
At a recent hearing, he pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent, burglary and affray.
Two counts of attempted burglary and one of threatening with an offensive weapon will lie on file.
The court had been told that Piruz’s mental health had deteriorated during his stay in Britain and he suffered hallucinations. He had a history of failing to take prescribed medication, which has led to episodes of severe paranoia, psychosis and violence, resulting in hospital admission. His barrister Simon Blackford had said in mitigation: ‘This offence was committed at a time of stress for my client. He was in a foreign country.’
But why was a man with Piruz’s criminal history and related mental health problems able to travel here at all?
The Dutch Justice Ministry denied that the authorities there had been wilfully negligent.
ASPOKESMAN said: ‘Piruz is on probation until September 1, 2018. His conditional release from prison is accompanied by certain rules such as supervision by the probation service and an alcohol and drug ban, while he has to co-operate in a number of residential, work and money issues. He has had to report once (every) few weeks by phone or physically to the probation office.
‘Piruz had no travel ban and a short stay abroad was not prohibited, as there were no legal grounds for that. In this case, he was visiting family in England and would be back in Holland for the next appointment with the probation office. Piruz was at large justly, in accordance with the conditions imposed.’
That explanation surely cannot be of comfort to anyone in the EU, let alone the Netherlands or the UK.
As the Mail reported earlier this week, unless a criminal is high profile, known to have committed crimes in several countries, or is on the Interpol wanted list, he or she is unlikely to be stopped when entering the UK or any other EU country.
Except in the most extreme circumstances, Brussels does not force member states to share information on known criminals who might be planning to travel.
But even if a new arrival does have a known conviction, they cannot automatically be picked up and refused entry – not even Jamshid Piruz, who all- but beheaded a neighbour and then tried to batter a police officer to death.