The details of this case, which until then had gone relatively unnoticed in the United Kingdom, emerged during the presentation of the charges against the accused before the Teesside court in Middlesbrough (north-east of England).
Accused of murder and attempted murder of a terrorist nature, the accused Alid Ahmed pleads not guilty.
He is accused of trying to kill his flatmate, then aged 31, in the early hours of October 15 last year, then killing a 70-year-old pensioner in Hartlepool town centre.
According to prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford, the accused was armed with two knives when he stabbed his roommate in the chest while shouting “Allah Akbar”, before attacking the pensioner half an hour later, who was walking in the city centre. city.
He thought he had killed them and told police “he wanted to kill them both because of the conflict in Gaza”, adding “that Palestine should be freed from the Zionists”, a term he used to designate Israel, the prosecutor said.
“The defendant said he would have killed more people if he could,” Mr Sandiford added. “They killed children and I killed an old man,” the accused said, explaining that he was ready for martyrdom.
He initially thought his roommate was Muslim before learning he had converted to Christianity, which angered him.
According to his roommates, asylum seekers like him, Ali Ahmed had an extreme view of Islam, closely followed media coverage of the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7 and had started carrying a knife.
The attacks carried out by the Palestinian Islamist movement left 1,170 dead, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Israel’s retaliation resulted in more than 33,500 deaths, according to Hamas’ health ministry.
