A teenager has been sentenced to at least 13 years in prison for the murder of the promising young footballer Kiyan Prince, who was stabbed to death outside his school gates.
Hannad Hasan, 17, a Somalian refugee, was given a life sentence at the Old Bailey yesterday for the 15-year-old's murder in May last year. He would be recommended for deportation on release from prison, the judge said.
Kiyan, who played for the youth team of Queens' Park Rangers, was stabbed through the heart when he intervened in a play fight outside the London Academy in Edgware, north-west London.
Hasan, who lived with his mother in Colindale, north London, grabbed Kiyan in a headlock, stabbing him in the heart, stomach and arm with a penknife he later described as "a little toy".
The youth had admitted the manslaughter of Kiyan, described as one of the "brightest talents" on the QPR youth team, but was convicted of murder earlier this month at the Old Bailey.
Today he stood in the dock with his head bowed as the judge, Paul Worsley, told him he had shown little genuine remorse for killing the popular schoolboy.
"This is yet another case of a wholly unprovoked stabbing in a public place, by a person who produced a knife and plunged it into the heart of their unarmed victim," the judge said.
"Taking the life of another is always a terrible thing; taking the life of a talented, popular 15-year-old schoolboy who was known to you and who had done you no wrong and had everything to live for defies description.
"You have deprived his family and schoolfriends of a role model."
The judge described victim statements from Kiyan's parents, which were read out in court, as a moving tribute to "the bright star in their lives".
It was the third time the youth had gone on trial for the murder. In the original trial the jury could not agree on a verdict, and a second trial collapsed in December last year after Kiyan's distraught father approached a juror on her way home.
After his arrest, Hasan told police that he hoped Kiyan's mother could forgive him. He said: "I am terribly sorry. I know how my mum would feel."
He told police he had only intended to give Kiyan "just a little scratch" with the knife. He added: "I did not want to stick it in him. I did not want to kill him. I am thinking this is like a dream."
After the jury's verdict earlier this month, Kiyan's family released a statement saying: "Kiyan's life being taken from us in this cruel way has done irreparable damage to our family. I would like to thank the jury for their wisdom and doing their part in bringing Kiyan's murderer to justice.
"Knife crime will continue to rise in numbers unless the government begins to take this knife culture seriously by coming down hard on potential murderers, because that's what a person carrying a knife is, and until then hard-working people with close families will continue to suffer."
"knife culture"? There is a knife culture in the UK?
Yeah, so to speak. Cursed teenagers with knives...
Good thing he didn't have a gun.
That's why I'm happy with the UK's gun restrictions. Still doesn't stop certain scumbags tooling up replicas so they work like the real thing, but it's better than nothing.
What's with this special treatment innocent victims are getting when it's a Somali perputrator?
A somali boy was thrown out of his flat by racist police and died in front of his wife but there was nothing on Channel 4 news or all those other media outlets yet when that fool killed that female police officer i was being bombarded with info about her life and the case
same with Kiyan it's very sad what happened to him but there's no need for news channels to make tv-specials about him every two weeks as if his life is somehow more important than the dozens of london kids that die each month
btw good job to Channel 4,5 and BBC news keep mentioning his background
Boy shot dead after bike chase is 10th young London victim in six months
Helen Pidd and Sandra Laville
Friday July 27, 2007
The Guardian
A 16-year-old boy was shot dead at point blank range yesterday in what a witness said was a random "execution" after he was chased across a south London estate by a gang of armed youths on bicycles.
The murder of Abukah Mahamood, who had just finished his GCSE exams, is the 10th high profile killing of a teenage boy in gang violence in London in less than six months.
Abukah, whose family are originally from Somalia, died in the early hours of yesterday morning after residents on the Stockwell Gardens estate, south London, heard several shots ring out. Police sources confirmed his name and said his family had been informed.
Officers believe a gang of up to seven youths who chased Abukah on bicycles were carrying at least two firearms. Witness said they were all wearing black hooded tops and wild west style bandanas.
One witness, who did not wish to be named for fear of reprisals, said: "It was an execution. He was on foot, they were on bikes and they circled him so that he had nowhere to go. He fell, and then one of them shot him, close-up, in the back of the head.
"The guy did it didn't even get off his bike. Once he had fired the shots, the gang escaped on their bikes. The boy was left lying there covered in blood. He wasn't making any noise or moving: I think they killed him instantly."
Another neighbour, who ran down after hearing the shots said: "He was lying in the foetal position and had blood running down his face." He said he saw the boys leaving on their bikes: "They were all wearing black hoodies with scarves covering their faces."
Paramedics attempted to resuscitate Abukah as he lay on the ground, one witness said. "There was about five paramedics in bright fluorescent tops trying to revive him and there was a girl who looked like a relative who was crying uncontrollably. They treated him there for ages, about one hour, before taking him away in an ambulance."
Yesterday as scene-of-crime officers searched the estate, the teenage boy's blood was still visible on the ground.
Detective Inspector Geoff Whitehouse, from Operation Trident which investigates crime in the black community, said: "It would appear that at approximately 12.15am the victim was pursued within the Stockwell Gardens estate by a group of between five to seven black males riding pedal cycles.
"A number of shots were fired towards the victim resulting in him being fatally wounded. The suspects, who we now believe to have been carrying two firearms, then made off into the alleyway."
One 16-year-old said two gangs from Herne Hill and Stockwell had clashed at a funfair last week and some were speculating that the murder was a result of that.
Nasina Khatum, a mother of three who has lived on the estate for 20 years said: "I heard two shots and thought it was fireworks but then half an hour later I heard all the police sirens. It's a terrible shame and such as waste of a young life."
Friends of the dead boy paid tribute to him yesterday. One 15-year-old friend said that although he had been in trouble with the police in the past, he did not have any enemies. "I don't think [the killing] was intentional," she said. "It was just unfortunate that he was there. He was not a wanted person and he wasn't involved in any gangs. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
She added that the family, who lived in nearby Tulse Hill, were originally from Somalia, but that English was his first language. He was a nice boy, they said: "Abukah was quiet, but he smiled a lot."
Others in the area said that the same gang of up to 10 youths on bicycles had been circling the estate at around midnight last Sunday. "They did the same thing, but no one was there," one resident said. "They fired shots and then left. They roam about trying to intimidate people."
A husband and wife Tony, 40, and Shelley, 37, who live on the estate said tension had been building for five years with drug and gang-related problems on the increase. "They have got a name for this place, it's Hot Spot. If you want drugs you go to Hot Spot," Tony said.
The couple said the teenagers wore clothes with SW9 written on the front and hotspot on the back. "That seems to be the gang uniform in this area. It's terrifying. My daughter is 13 and my son is 16 and I'm worried they will get mixed up in it, especially when there's kids getting shot right outside your door."
The killing is the latest in a spate of fatal knife attacks and shootings in the capital in which the victims have been boys aged as young as 14.
It's terrible. Why the hell would anyone want to do something like that?
Guns, knives... I swear, if some of the perpetrators had a good smack upside the head, maybe they'd think twice about carrying out such attacks or reoffending. Of course, maybe they've been smacked one too many times (i.e. abused), but they know the nature and quality of their acts if they're teenagers. They should be punished as adults.
Discipline is indeed breaking down in both the U.K. and the U.S. It is a product of culture I believe. Perhaps this thread could also include ideas for confronting this problem. If children are our future....
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."
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