Killer of Afghan refugee who had sought ‘a safer life’ in London jailed for 10 years

BEIRUT: A 17-year-old was jailed on Friday for 10 years for stabbing to death an 18-year-old Afghan refugee who had come to the UK in search of “a safer life.”

Hazrat Wali died in hospital shortly after an attack at Craneford Way Playing Fields in Twickenham, London, on Oct. 12, 2021, that left him with a 10 cm-deep knife wound, the BBC reported.

A jury at the Old Bailey found the teenage attacker, who cannot be named for legal reasons, not guilty of murder but convicted him of the lesser crime of manslaughter. During his trial, he admitted carrying a weapon but said he had not intended to cause serious harm to Wali, who was a student and an aspiring cricketer.

Shortly before the fatal attack, the defendant had appeared at Wimbledon magistrates’ court where he was sentenced to a youth rehabilitation order for carrying a knife at a shopping center two months earlier.

Sentencing him on Friday, Judge Sarah Plaschkes K.C. told the killer: “When you stabbed Hazrat he was unarmed and outnumbered by you and your friends.”

She added that he had made a “deliberate decision to carry a fearsome weapon” that day, and added: “You told the jury that you took the knife to the magistrates’ court. You left it in some bushes outside and collected it once the hearing concluded.”

The court earlier heard that the defendant had attacked an employee at a McDonald’s restaurant just an hour after stabbing Wali. In that case, he pleaded guilty to affray and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Wali had came to London from Afghanistan “hoping for a safer life,” his older brother, Mohammed Ashuk, told the court. The 18-year-old victim was enjoying his new life in the UK and had settled into a college course in the hope of becoming an engineer.