Migrant murdered restaurant owner in random stabbing attack because his asylum application was rejected

A Channel migrant known to police in four countries randomly murdered a restaurant owner after his asylum application was rejected, a court heard.

Haybe Cabdiraxmaan Nur, a 47-year-old Somali national, stuck a knife into the chest of Gurvinder Singh Johal (37), a father of three, at Lloyds Bank in Derby and left the branch ‘calmly’. He confessed to the murder in August.

Mr Johal, known as Danny to friends, lived in West Bromwich with his wife and children, aged five, three and one, but owned several businesses, including the Hen and Chickens Bar and Grill restaurant in Shelton Lock.

He was visiting the bank to pay salaries to his staff.

Shocking CCTV footage played at Nur’s sentencing hearing at Derby Crown Court today showed the failed asylum seeker entered the branch in St Peter Street for just 22 seconds on May 6.

Without hesitation, he is seen walking towards Mr Johal, stabbing him in the chest and walking out.

The knife was ‘left protruding’ from Mr Johal’s chest and he was pronounced dead less than an hour later.

Several relatives of Mr Johal who watched security cameras in court were so upset they had to leave the hearing.

Prosecutor Louis Mable KC told the court Nur arrived in the UK on a small boat on October 22, 2024, but was told four days later that she had no reasonable grounds to apply for asylum as she was not a victim of trafficking.

His asylum application was formally rejected in January, and by March he was served with an immigration bail notice requiring him not to work.

The court heard he was previously arrested for violence and public order offenses in England in December 2024, where he was heard shouting ‘fuck the British’ and ‘white supremacist bastards’ as he tried to get into traffic.

In this incident, he was said to have headbutted a construction worker, but no charges were brought against him.

But Mr Mable said the defendant was known to police in four European countries – France, Luxembourg, Italy and Germany – in the years before he arrived in the UK after being arrested for various offences.

Gurvinder Singh Johal, 37, was stabbed to death at a Lloyds Bank branch in Derby.

In Italy, he was given a one-year suspended prison sentence in May 2023 for robbery, assault causing actual bodily harm and resisting a public officer.

He was later arrested in other European countries for various minor crimes, including theft, but was never convicted.

The prosecutor said that at the time of the murder the defendant was living in a Home Office flat run by Serco in Derby.

The court heard Nur’s friend Mohamed Abdirohman described seeing him drinking vodka and beer on the morning of the attack, ‘as if he was having a party by himself’.

The prosecutor said that Nur called a charity called Immigrant Aid about two hours before the attack, during which he could be heard ‘crying’, complaining about how the authorities were treating him and saying that he was ‘going to go and kill 500 people and then kill himself’.

“The defendant said he did this because he had no rights in the UK; he had no right to stay, he was not allowed to work despite his skills, he was forced to lose his skills and abilities because he was kept in an open-door prison,” Mr Mable said.

He added: ‘He said he was going to get a knife, he was going to stab as many people as he could see in front of him and the police could come and do whatever they wanted to him but he was going to do it.’

In his second call to the charity, about an hour before the attack, he said he would ‘go after people who say they are doctors, police or people working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs’.

The defendant ‘didn’t care if God punished him (for killing himself) because he was now in a worse hell’ and the UK authorities made him live ‘like an animal’.

The prosecutor said, “The defendant said he would go live on social media and explain how rubbish England is before he murdered himself live on air.”

The charity alerted the East Midlands Ambulance Service, who contacted Derbyshire Police, but he was not stopped in time.

Mr Johal was fatally stabbed at Lloyds Bank on St Peters Street, Derby.

At the time of the attack the defendant was living in a Home Office flat run by Serco in Derby.

Nur left his home address at around 2.07pm and was seen on CCTV sitting on a bench on the corner of St Peter Street with half a bottle of vodka between his legs.

Nur entered the bank branch at 14.32.

The prosecutor said: ‘At the time, Gurvinder Johal was last in the queue waiting to speak to the cashiers.

‘The defendant approached Mr Johal, produced a knife and stabbed Mr Johal forcefully in the chest. ‘Mr Johal appeared confused and collapsed.’

Mr Johal. The man, who was Facetimeing with a friend at the time, fell on his front, causing the handle of the knife to break and pushing the blade further into his chest.

Mr Mable added: ‘The defendant left the knife sticking out of Mr Johal’s chest and calmly left the bank.’

Nur returned to his flat at 2.52pm, where he was attended to just four minutes later by paramedics called to his address by an immigration charity, which was unaware of his crime.

The defendant was discharged at the scene at 3.51pm and remained there until police arrived at the address at 5.58pm, where they arrested him and found him sleeping on the floor under the duvet.

While Nur was being taken to the police station, it was recorded on a police officer’s camera that he said: ‘What can you get from me? ‘I did this on purpose.’

Later, when he returned to the police station, he began to mistreat police officers and told one officer: ‘Your wife, you will die tomorrow.’

Nur was also recorded on body camera describing the officers as animals that would tear him to pieces before making a reference to Osama bin Laden.

Mr Mable described the defendant’s statement to border officers when he first arrived in the UK.

“In summary, he stated that his wife was killed by close family members in 2016 because she was from a different tribe,” he said.

‘He left Somalia in 2016 and went to Libya; Here he was treated like an animal and held against his will.

‘Four months later, a friend sent him $1,800 to get on a boat to Europe.

‘He had been in a camp, spent time in France and Italy, where he stayed in camps and sold illegal cigarettes. ‘He had paid €400 for the trip to the UK which he had arranged for himself.’

It was stated that Nur did not remember committing the crime because he was very drunk at the time.

A heartbreaking statement was read to the court on behalf of Mr Johal’s family before the hearing.

It read: ‘We stand before you today, hurt and grieving, to speak of the unbearable pain and emptiness that has consumed our lives since Gurvinder Singh Johal (our son, our Danny) was brutally taken from us.

‘To the world he can be many things: a devoted husband, a loving father, a cherished brother and a devoted friend. But to us and to God he was just a good man. Our Gurvinder. Our light.”

The statement described the pain Mr. Johal experienced as he tried to explain to his children that their father would not be coming home.

‘The deepest wound is the impact on Gurvinder’s children; “The innocence of the heirs has been stolen,” he said.

‘They were once carefree and cheerful, now they are withdrawn, fearful and confused. “When will my father return?” They ask, “A monster took my father away.” They say.

‘We were left with the impossible task of explaining that he would never return. ‘How do you tell a child that his father has been taken away from him forever?’

James Horne KC, defending, said Nur was ‘in a state of change and crisis’ at the time and was trying to cope with both her alcohol addiction and the sense of injustice she felt about the UK’s asylum system.

A psychiatrist who assessed Nur was said to have concluded: ‘He resorted to violence as a terrifying expression of his anger and despair.’

Nur will be sentenced later today.