A man who fatally stabbed a young Porsche driver in a scene compared to the ‘Wild West’ has been sent to prison for life.
Awad Abdel Samad, 24, kiled Mohamed Abdi, 19, on 4 June 2024.
Samad claimed he acted in self-defence during the incident on London’s busy Edgware Road.
However, he was motivated by his belief that Mr Abdi had been involved in kidnapping and torturing a friend two days earlier, Judge Lynn Tayton told the Old Bailey on Thursday.
Samad was motivated by revenge and “acted with extreme aggression and persistence”, the judge said.
She sentenced Samad to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 27 years for Mr Abdi’s murder.
The attack “took place on a congested street where there were many people in vehicles and on foot”, she told Samad.
“You can see how terrifying this was to members of the public.”
On 2 June, Samad’s friend Soufian Chafi was kidnapped and tortured, with footage of the attack posted on social media showing him “naked and humiliated”, the judge told the court.
Though there was no evidence Mr Abdi was involved, Samad and his co-defendant Mohamad Mahmoud El-Hazzaa, 27, from Westminster, both believed that he was.
On 4 June, Samad was on Edgware Road in the front passenger seat of a Seat Leon, which was being driven by El-Hazzaa, the court heard.
The victim, Mr Abdi, was driving a Porsche Cayenne, which he pulled close up behind the defendants’ car, flashing his lights.
Both cars stopped and Samad got out of the vehicle with a knife.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC previously told jurors: “It is, you might have thought, like something from the Wild West.
“Mohamed Abdi clearly saw him coming and got out. The two of them then started to fight – Mohamed Abdi was also armed with a knife.
“But within a few seconds of the start of their fighting, the defendant gained a crucial advantage.
“He swung a kick and managed to kick Mohamed Abdi’s knife out of his hand, on to the road. So that meant that now, only one of them had a knife – the defendant.”
The disarmed victim retreated and got back into the Porsche, pursued by the defendant, who reached him before he shut the car door, the court was told.
Samad then stabbed Mr Abdi three times, including once in the chest, which went through the cartilage of the ribs and into the heart, the court heard.
As the defendant made off in the Seat Leon, Mr Abdi managed to drive forward into Bell Street where he died, despite efforts of members of the public and paramedics.
In a victim impact statement read out in court, Mr Abdi’s mother, Sharon, and his sister, Amirah, described him as a “cherished son and a loving brother” and “a young man who had much to live for”.
Judge Tayton said: “They fear his life has been stolen.”
El-Hazzaa was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
