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Victim Nassirudeen Osawe |
‘Put down knives and respect life’ plea as smiling killer is convicted
Mother speaks of ‘unbearable pain and suffering’ caused by stabbing of a beloved son
THE cowardly killer who swaggered away smirking as he left art student Nassirudeen Osawe dying in Upper Street, Islington, last Christmas is facing a life sentence.
After weeping through an Old Bailey trial which ended with the conviction of Ahmet Gomulu for murder, the victim’s grieving mother Fulera spoke of the family’s “unbearable pain and suffering” at their loss.
“Nothing can bring back our beloved and precious son, brother and friend,” she said. “Justice has been done to his memory. We urge all young people to put down their knives and respect life.”
Unemployed Gomulu was “looking for trouble” when he spotted Nass, five days short of his 17th birthday, and two friends on a bendy bus on December 27 last year.
Gomulu was on the top deck of a 73 bus nearing Angel and, although the three friends were complete strangers to him, he wanted a confrontation.
When they got off and waited at a stop to take them towards the West End for a shopping trip, Gomulu, 18, stepped onto the street with his Staffordshire bull terrier Brandy’s lead in one hand and a flick knife in his pocket.
The jury at the two-week trial heard that although the lads were “just minding their own business”, Gomulu, of Stoke Newington, “suddenly and without reason” accused them of staring at him. They said they had no interest in him and that he was “talking silly”, said prosecutor Edward Brown, QC. But Gomulu’s reaction was to pull out his knife, open it and wave the blade at them.
In the next two minutes, according to eye- witnesses, all hell broke loose and the area outside The York pub at Angel “looked like a scene from the Wild West”.
The victim, who lived with his close-knit family in Petherton Road, Highbury, and his friends picked up chairs and traffic cones to defend themselves.
Gomulu, who has previous convictions for carrying a blade and robbing a schoolboy of his mobile phone, responded by stabbing one of the friends, aged 17, in the stomach. Mercifully, the wound was not life-threatening.
Mr Brown told the jury: “He chuckled and seemed to laugh. He flicked the knife towards Nass. Seconds later, as the two closed on each other, Nass was fatally stabbed to the heart and then to the leg.”
Police community support officer Stacy Griffin saw the “fast-moving” incident and watched Nass stumble. She dashed across three traffic lanes to go to his aid.
“I helped him to the ground before he fell,” she told the court. “I was trying to stop the flow of blood and keep him conscious,”
Mr Brown said: “Tragically, he died within minutes.”
Gomulu still had a smile or smirk on his face as he made his way to the nearby canal to get rid of the knife.
Later he claimed in evidence he was acting in self-defence and that the knife was not his but belonged to one of the three friends.
The jury rejected his account and unanimously convicted him of murdering Nass and wounding his friend with intent to cause serious injury.
Recorder of London Judge Peter Beaumont remanded Gomulu in custody for pre-sentence reports.
He was warned that when he is sentenced next month he faces a minimum 15 years behind bars before even being able to apply for parole. |
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