A terrorist who murdered a pensioner in Hartlepool town centre as “revenge” for “the people of Gaza” has been jailed for 45 years.
Ahmed Alid, 45, an asylum seeker from Morocco, stabbed 70-year-old Terence Carney, a complete stranger he encountered on the street, on 15 October.
Minutes earlier, he had broken into the bedroom of his housemate, Christian convert Javed Nouri, and hacked at him while he slept.
Alid shouted “Allahu Akbar” – “God is great” – during the attack at the Home Office-approved asylum seekers’ accommodation, which Nouri survived. Alid then fled into the street, still armed with a knife.
During Alid’s trial, the court heard that his housemates had observed him watching coverage of the Hamas attack on 7 October and that he had begun carrying a knife.
While in custody, Alid told the police in an interview that he had attacked Nouri and Carney because “Israel had killed innocent children”.
Carney’s wife, Patricia Carney, read a statement at Teesside crown court and said “her life had forever changed” after Alid’s attack.
The court heard that an early morning walk had been part of Carney’s daily routine as he enjoyed the peace and quiet of the early hours.
“Tess was doing what he had always done and enjoyed doing – he was taking a walk on a street he believed to be safe, and a chance encounter with this man ended his life,” Patricia Carney said.
She said she could no longer visit the town centre because it was “too painful” to be close to where Alid killed her husband.
Footage from a doorbell camera showed Carney, who was out walking in the town centre, cry out “No, no” as Alid attacked him with a knife and shouted “Allahu Akbar”.
Alid was also motivated by Nouri’s conversion to Christianity. After his arrest, Alid was detained at Middlesbrough police station and could be heard saying that God was “displeased” with apostates, that “Allah willing, Gaza would return to be an Arab country”, and how he would have continued his “raid” if he had not injured his hands.
The judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, told Alid he had “hoped to frighten the people of Britain and undermine the freedoms they enjoy” when he murdered Carney in a terrorist attack. She said the attack on Nouri was an attempt to punish him for converting to Christianity.
The judge said Alid then “attacked an unarmed and elderly man who was unable to defend himself”.
She told Alid that psychiatric reports found no evidence of psychosis “or any other serious mental illness” and that the jury had “seen through [his] lies” after he claimed that the police had mistranslated his statement, adding that he was not motivated by religious or political causes.
Jonathan Sandiford KC, prosecuting, told the court: “In other words, he said he had committed the attempted murder of Javed Nouri and the murder of Mr Carney in revenge for what he believed to be the killing of children by Israel.”
Nouri, 31, said that since the attack, he did not “trust anyone or anything”, and “all thoughts and feelings I had of being in a safe country have gone”.
His statement added: “I would expect to be arrested and killed in my home country for converting to Christianity, but I did not expect to be attacked in my sleep here.
“How is it possible for someone to destroy someone’s life because of his religion?”
After the sentencing, the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, called for “a major overhaul of the UK’s asylum and immigration system” that “shockingly” took three years to process Alid’s claim.
She said: “These were the most appalling terror attacks and all our thoughts are with the victims, their families and the local community.
“Ahmed Alid is responsible for these terrible crimes, but we cannot ignore the alarming catalogue of failures in the way the Home Office dealt with his case.”
Cooper criticised how Alid was not challenged by Border Force staff when he entered the UK unlawfully in 2020, and that his case was not fast-tracked.
The Conservative MP for Hartlepool, Jill Mortimer, said Alid “should never have been” in the town.
Source: theguardian.com
