🔗 Share this article

A individual has been jailed for life with a lowest sentence of 23 years for the killing of a young Syrian asylum seeker after the victim brushed past his partner in Huddersfield town centre.

Trial Learns Particulars of Deadly Altercation

A Leeds courtroom was told how the accused, 20, knifed Ahmad Al Ibrahim, aged 16, soon after the boy walked by his companion. He was declared guilty of murder on the fourth day of the week.

The victim, who had left war-torn the city of Homs after being hurt in a bombing, had been living in the Huddersfield area for only a short period when he encountered Franco, who had been for a jobcentre appointment that day and was intending to purchase beauty product with his girlfriend.

Particulars of the Attack

Leeds crown court heard that the accused – who had used cannabis, a stimulant drug, a prescription medication, ketamine and a painkiller – took “some petty exception” to the boy “without malice” going past his girlfriend in the road.

Surveillance tape displayed the defendant uttering words to the victim, and summoning him after a short verbal altercation. As Ahmad approached, Franco opened the blade on a folding knife he was concealing in his clothing and drove it into the victim's neck.

Verdict and Judgment

Franco pleaded not guilty to murder, but was found guilty by a jury who took a little more than three hours to decide. He pleaded guilty to possessing a knife in a public space.

While delivering the judgment on the fifth day of the week, judge Howard Crowson said that upon seeing Ahmad, the defendant “identified him as a target and lured him to within your range to strike before ending his life”. He said the defendant's assertion to have seen a weapon in the victim's belt was “false”.

He said of the victim that “it stands as proof to the doctors and nurses working to keep him alive and his determination to live he even made it to the hospital alive, but in truth his injuries were unsurvivable”.

Family Reaction and Message

Reciting a statement drafted by Ahmad’s uncle his uncle, with input from his parents, Richard Wright KC told the judges that the boy's dad had suffered a heart attack upon learning of the incident of his boy's killing, leading to an operation.

“It is hard to express the impact of their heinous crime and the effect it had over everyone,” the statement stated. “The boy's mom still sobs over his belongings as they remind her of him.”

The uncle, who said the boy was dear to him and he felt guilty he could not shield him, went on to declare that Ahmad had thought he had found “a safe haven and the achievement of aspirations” in England, but instead was “cruelly taken away by the senseless and unprovoked act”.

“Being his relative, I will always carry the guilt that the boy had come to the UK, and I could not protect him,” he said in a message after the sentencing. “Our beloved boy we adore you, we long for you and we will feel this way eternally.”

Background of the Teenager

The court learned the teenager had made his way for a quarter of a year to reach the UK from his home country, visiting a shelter for teenagers in a city in Wales and going to school in the Welsh city before relocating to West Yorkshire. The teenager had dreamed of becoming a physician, motivated partly by a desire to care for his mom, who had a persistent condition.