Man who fatally stabbed 16-year-old refugee in the neck says he was ‘aiming for his cheek’
A man who fatally stabbed a teenage refugee in the neck in a busy city center aimed for the boy’s cheek, a court was told.
Ahmad Al Ibrahim, 16, died after his girlfriend was stabbed by 20-year-old Alfie Franco, whom he brushed on a busy shopping street in Huddersfield on April 3.
Prosecutors say Franco “innocently” walked up to Ahmad and then “took a minor exception” to possibly have “minor contact” with his girlfriend.
Leeds Crown Court heard Franco beckon Ahmed to him and as he approached the defendant opened the knife on a flick knife he was carrying and drove it into the boy’s neck.
On Tuesday Franco told a hearing he stabbed Ahmed because he was “afraid something would happen to me” and “I just wanted to cut him”.
The court heard Ahmed was “quite aggressive” during the argument and “continued to attack his waist”.
Franco said he was in West Yorkshire city center that day for a JobCentre appointment and his girlfriend wanted to buy some eyelash glue afterwards.
He asked why he took the knife with him, “Because I’ve been in arguments and heard about things going on in the city. I just wanted to have it with me… to keep me safe.”
After watching a CCTV clip of himself and his girlfriend walking and eating ice cream together moments before the stabbing, Franco said: “I was feeling very happy… The meeting at the Jobcentre went well.”
As the couple walks around “a lad” (Ahmad) asks “Do you have a problem?” before turning to look at him and his girlfriend. he said.
Franco said he didn’t know what happened, but the boy “came out aggressively” and assumed either his girlfriend was “making him angry.”
“I had a feeling something was going to happen. Usually when someone says it in that tone they mean something,” he told jurors.
“I was a little confused in the beginning and a little scared as it went on. It escalated from there.”
Franco said Ahmad’s friend tried to hold him back, but he “just shrugged it off.”
He told the court: “He started walking quickly towards me… I thought he was going to attack me.
“It was his body language. He continued on his waist and he was putting his hood over his face and he was intimidating me. He was coming to do something.”
Asked how he responded, Franco said: “I reacted… I stabbed him in the neck.” he said.
He told the court he removed the knife from his waistband and extended his arm, but aimed it at Ahmed’s cheek.
He said: “I just wanted to cut it off so I could escape. It was coming at me that way, I just wanted it to stop.”
“I wasn’t in a good place. I was scared, confused, feeling a lot of mixed emotions,” she said as she left the scene of the stabbing.
Franco left the city center and went home, but 10 minutes later he told the court he decided to hand himself over to a police station: “I just thought that was the only option.
“I had to turn myself in, it was the right thing to do.”
He said at this point he knew he had cut Ahmed but did not realize how serious his injury was and “thought it was just an argument.”
The court heard Franco was born in Huddersfield, but returned at 13 and moved to South Africa with his family as a baby.
He said South Africa was “a beautiful place but quite dangerous”, telling the court that his family home was Burgned “at least once or twice a week” and robbed “countless times”, but he never experienced violence as he always handed over his goods.
When Franco returned to Huddersfield as a teenager, he said he was bullied and beaten at school because of his accident.
He told jurors he was stabbed in the hand when he was 17 and cut his face during an incident last October.
After Ahmed’s death, his family said he came to the UK from Syria after being injured in a bombardment to live with his uncle and that he dreamed of becoming a doctor “wanting to heal others after they had endured it”.
They said: “He chose to come to England because he believed in the values of human rights, security and dignity… he was settling into his new life with his uncle, adjusting to a new language, a new home and a future he was excited to build.
“Ahmad was kind, gentle and showed so much promise. Losing him has left an unimaginable hole in our hearts.
“We never thought that the place he considered a safe haven would be where his life would end.”
Franco denied murder but pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing a knife in a public place.
The trial continues.
