LONDON: A Moroccan asylum-seeker who stabbed a British national to death in revenge for Israel’s war on Gaza was sentenced to at least 45 years in jail on Friday.
Ahmed Alid when arrested told the police that he had killed 70-year-old Terence Carney in the town of Hartlepool because Israel had killed innocent children.
“They killed children and I killed an old man,” he said during questioning.
Prosecutors said that on October 15, eight days after war started between Israel and Hamas, Alid attacked his housemate, Iranian asylum-seeker Javed Nouri, with a knife while sleeping.
However, Nouri survived the attack, later Alid ran outside, and stabbed Carne six times who was having a morning walk.
Prosecution lawyer Jonathan Sandiford said Alid had told police that he would have killed more people if he had machine gun.
Alid, 45, had denied the charges against him. Though he acknowledged stabbing the men, he said he had no intent to kill them.
A jury at Teesside Crown Court last month found Alid guilty of murder and attempted murder.
Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb sentenced Alid to 45 years of imprisonment with no chance of parole.
“The murder of Terence Carney was a terrorist act in which you hoped to influence the British government,” the court said. “You hoped to frighten the British people and undermine the freedoms they enjoy,” the judge observed.
Nouri, a Christianity convert, said the attack had destroyed his sense of safety.
