Cathays murder: Three men guilty of chasing and killing teen
Three men have been found guilty of chasing a teenager and stabbing him to death on a Cardiff street.
Fahad Mohamed Nur, 18, was found with 21 knife wounds near Cathays railway station last June.
Shafique Shaddad, 25, from Butetown, and brothers Mustafa Aldobhani, 22 and Abdulgalil Aldobhani, 23, from Cathays, were found guilty of murder by a jury.
A fourth defendant, Aseel Arar, 35, from Birmingham, was found guilty of assisting an offender.
The three killers all denied murder but were found guilty at Cardiff Crown Court after more than 27 hours of deliberating by the jury.
The court heard Abdulgalil Aldobhani had been out on licence from prison when the men committed the attack.
Prosecutors described the three men trying to “hunt down” Mr Nur, after spotting him riding a bike.
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During the trial, the jury heard how at shortly after midnight on 2 June, the three men chased the teenager to a lane behind a Cardiff University building.
He was attacked and left in the street with numerous knife wounds, including a fatal injury through the heart.
Mr Nur later died at the University Hospital of Wales.
Lawyers defending each of the defendants told the court Shaddad had been attempting to break up a fight between Mr Nur and Abdulgalil Aldobhani, in which Mr Nur had been the “aggressor”.
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South Wales Police
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Fahad Mohamed Nur had 21 knife wounds, including a fatal injury through the heart
Mr Nur’s had almost £1,000 in cash and a large quantity of Class A drugs on him when he was killed.
A barrister defending one of his killers described Nur as a “drug dealer, apparently on active duty”.
During the trial, Narita Bahra, defending Abdulgalil Aldobhani, told the court Mr Nur had a history of violence.
She said Mr Nur had previously been stopped by police carrying two concealed knives and had 43 wraps of crack cocaine and heroin hidden in his underwear on the night of his death.
Two weeks after his death, children found a meat cleaver and a kitchen knife were found by the toilet block near Cardiff University.
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CPS
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Two weeks after the attack a meat cleaver and a kitchen knife were found hidden in the hollow of a tree
A victim impact statement from Mr Nur’s sister, which was read to the court, said the murder “shocked the whole of Cardiff’s Somali community”.
It added: “He was ambushed and stabbed to death in such a cowardly and vicious attack when he was clearly running away.
“He was a young educated boy who had ambitions and dreams. He was loved by so many people. It was a senseless and horrific act of evil.”
Det Ch Insp Mark O’Shea from South Wales Police said: “Fahad Nur had turned 18 just two weeks before he was stabbed to death in a cowardly attack by Mustafa Aldobhani, his brother Abdulgalil and Shafique Shaddad.
“Fahad was alone unarmed and deliberately targeted following a trivial dispute. The level of violence and ferocity was unjustified and unprovoked.”
He also paid tribute to Mr Nur’s family and the people who tried to save his life after he was stabbed.
The three killers will be sentenced on Friday, while Arar will be sentenced at the end of the month.
