Killer posed as a child to claim asylum and murder again in UK
Afghan who stabbed aspiring Marine shot two men in Serbia before crossing Channel
AN Afghan double killer was able to sneak into Britain posing as a 14-yearold schoolboy before going on to murder an aspiring Royal Marine, it emerged last night.
Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai stabbed Thomas Roberts, 21, to death during a row over an e-scooter in Bournemouth, Dorset, on March 12 last year.
Despite having had an asylum application rejected in Norway weeks earlier, he was granted permission to stay in the UK in December 2019 after claiming to be an unaccompanied child fleeing the Taliban. Abdulrahimzai was placed with a female foster carer and granted a place at a secondary school.
Last night there were calls for an inquiry into the case after it emerged that he had lied about his age and was in fact an adult who had gunned down two fellow migrants with a Kalashnikov rifle in Serbia on his way to the UK.
Abdulrahimzai, who also has a conviction for drug dealing in Italy, was sentenced over the murders in his absence, but was able to claim asylum in the UK after travelling on a ferry from Cherbourg to Poole.
A court heard that after his arrival in the UK, he posed with a knife on Tiktok, was filmed on Snapchat assaulting a man in the street and got into street fights for money.
Tobias Ellwood, the MP for Bournemouth East, called for an urgent inquiry into the failings in the case.
He said: “There must now be an investigation into how such a dangerous individual slipped through the net. Did anyone know he had killed twice in Serbia before arriving in the UK? The Home Office has to answer some very serious questions.”
A Home Office source said: “This is a shocking case and our thoughts are with Thomas Roberts’s family and friends. It’s this Government’s aim to bring in laws so that we can swiftly remove those who come to this country illegally.”
While there has been a large rise in unaccompanied child refugees travelling to the UK, Home Office figures show that more than 50 migrants aged over 30 have been registered as children on arrival in the past decade after falsely claiming to be under 18.
Ministers are proposing the introduction of bone and teeth scans to force migrants to prove their age and stop adults claiming to be children to boost their asylum chances.
A new immigration Bill is being drawn up by Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, and Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, which will mean migrants arriving in the UK illegally will be detained and automatically deported back to their home country or a third nation, such as Rwanda, where they will be able to claim asylum.
Abdulrahimzai had admitted to killing Mr Roberts, but denied murder, claiming he wrongly thought he was an agent of the Taliban trying to assassinate him.
But the jury at Salisbury Crown Court, who were not aware of the Serbian killings, rejected his defence and found him guilty of murder.
When he was arrested Abdulrahimzai told officers he was 16 years old, having arrived in the UK as a 14-year-old two years earlier. It can now be revealed he had repeatedly frustrated attempts by immigration officials to establish his real age, missing numerous interviews and refusing to hand over documents and statements.
Subsequent tests carried out on his teeth before the trial revealed that he was in fact 21 years old.
A Home Office spokesman said: “Foreign-national offenders who exploit our system and commit crimes here in the UK will face the full force of the law, including deportation at the earliest opportunity for those eligible.”
A 21-YEAR-OLD Afghan asylum seeker, who has been found guilty of murdering an aspiring Royal Marine, had previously killed two people in Serbia before posing as a child to sneak into Britain, it has been revealed.
Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai was convicted yesterday of stabbing to death 21-year-old Thomas Roberts outside a Subway sandwich shop in Bournemouth, Dorset, in March last year.
He earlier admitted to manslaughter, but a jury at Salisbury Crown Court took 12 hours to find him guilty of murder with a majority verdict.
On his journey from Afghanistan to Bournemouth, Abdulrahimzai travelled through at least five different countries, became a convicted drug dealer and was sentenced to 20 years in a Serbian prison for murdering two of his councials trymen with a Kalashnikov, it has emerged. Despite his criminal record, and having an asylum claim rejected by the Norwegian authorities a few weeks earlier, in December 2019 he was able to board a ferry in Cherbourg, France, and travel to the UK.
He claimed asylum in Poole, Dorset, after falsely telling a Home Office interviewer he was 14 years old when he was in fact at least 18.
He was placed with a local foster carer – who became so terrified of him she was forced to keep all the knives in the house locked away – and was also granted a place at a secondary school.
A court heard that after his arrival in the UK, Abdulrahimzai posed with a knife on Tiktok, was filmed on Snapchat assaulting a man in the street and got into street fights for money.
When Abdulrahimzai arrived in the UK, Home Office guidance at the time stipulated that he could only be treated as an adult if his physical appearance and demeanour “strongly suggested” he was 25 or over.
It is believed that immigration offithomas did not accept his claimed age of 14 but, under the rules, had to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him to be treated as a child until a more thorough “Merton” test of his age could be carried out by expert social workers.
Sources said Abdulrahimzai, now supported by immigration lawyers, dragged out the process and “messed around” officials by failing to attend interviews and delaying the submission of his statement of evidence to support his asylum claim.
It is understood a Merton test was only carried out in February 2022, more than two years after his arrival in England and a month before he murdered Mr Roberts.
It judged his age to be 21, five years older than he was claiming and showing he had been an adult all along.
Abdulrahimzai grew up in Afghanistan, but claims he was orphaned when his parents were killed by the Taliban after they were caught working with Nato and brewing alcohol. Following their deaths, Abdulrahimzai, then aged 13, was captured by the militants and beaten and tortured for weeks.
He said he was stabbed “28 times” and hit with rifle butts before being left for dead on the side of the road.
He fled in October 2015 after his uncle helped arrange for him to be smuggled out of the country through Pakistan and Iran. The 13-year-old Abdulrahimzai arrived in Norway late in 2015 but left soon after and made his way to Trieste, Italy, in 2016.
While there he was convicted of drug dealing and given a non-custodial sentence after pleading guilty.
By June 2017, he had made his way to Serbia, where he stayed for the next year, and by August 2018 he was in the small village of Dobrinci.
It was often passed by travelling groups of migrants making their way from the country’s capital, Belgrade, to the village of Šid which lies on the border of Croatia.
On the night of July 31, Abdulrahimzai walked into a shed in farmland on the edge of Dobrinci where a group of refugees were staying, and gunned down two men in cold blood with an assault rifle.
Jurors at the Salisbury court were unaware of this during the trial, but after finding him guilty, Nic Lobbenberg, prosecuting, revealed the details of the “terrifying” double murder.
He said: “An argument broke about the business of transporting migrants. He was armed with an automatic assault rifle, two others had pistols. One of the group said ‘who is the smuggler?’ and then aimed their weapons at the victims. He shot 18 rounds of a 7.62 calibre Kalashnikov. It’s a military weapon with great firepower and rapid rate of fire.
“The range of the shooting was said to be relatively short, three to 10 metres.” Mr Lobbenberg said the killer did not move position at all while shooting and fired six rounds into each victim. “An enormous number found their target,” he said.
Abdulrahimzai, who then fled Serbia, was later identified by a taxi driver who drove him away from the scene.
The man said he was “sweating” and “showing signs of anxiety”.
A Un-backed report published in 2018 described the killings as one of the most “disturbing” incidents of the Balkan Route crisis. Residents said people living in the area were afraid to work in
‘It’s a terrifying case with the use of an automatic firearm possibly linked to the business of trafficking’
nearby fields for weeks after the murder. While making his way across Europe, Abdulrahimzai used a number of different names and dates of birth.
At the time of the murders in Serbia, he was travelling under “16-year-old Huan Yasin”. By the time he arrived in the UK a year and a half later, he was “14-year-old Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai”. It was not until November 2020, by which point he was attending school in the UK, that Abdulrahimzai was convicted of both murders and sentenced to 20 years in his absence by a Serbian court. Yesterday, Judge Paul Dugdale said: “It’s a terrifying case with the use of an automatic firearm possibly linked to the business of trafficking.”
Abdulrahimzai will be sentenced tomorrow.