A Moroccan asylum seeker has been found guilty of murdering a stranger in a rampage motivated by the conflict in Gaza.
Ahmed Ali Alid, 45, attempted to kill his housemate, a Christian convert, stabbing him in his bed as he slept.
He then prowled the streets of Hartlepool until he came across Terence Carney, 70, who was out for a morning walk, attacking him and stabbing him to death.
He told police the attack, a week after the Hamas attacks on Israel, was “for the people of Gaza” and he had wanted to kill more victims.
At the end of his police interview, Alid attacked two female officers, yelling “Palestine” and “Allahu Akbar” – meaning “God is great” – as he grabbed one of them and wrestled her to the ground, causing his solicitor to dial 999.
The court heard Alid, a former pastry chef, had travelled from Morocco to Spain in 2007 and spent time in 13 different European countries before arriving in Britain.
He spent 13 years living in Italy, Germany – where he was denied asylum – and Spain, before arriving in Middlesborough by ferry from the Netherlands in 2020.
He claimed asylum and spent the next three years living in a hotel in Hull and then state-funded accommodation in a terraced house in Hartlepool, waiting for his claim to be processed.
‘Watching terrorist news’
Alid’s housemate had alerted police that he was an “extreme Muslim” and said that he would sit in the kitchen with a knife and give him “bad looks” after realising he had converted to Christianity.
Javid Nouri, an Iranian asylum seeker, described how he found Alid laughing and “watching terrorist news” on his phone in the kitchen following the 7 October attacks by Hamas.
Nouri told the managers of the hostel he believed Alid was a “terrorist” and went to police on 13 October, but was told there was nothing they could do unless Alid was carrying the knife around the house or using it to threaten his housemates.
Two days later, Nouri was woken around 5am when Alid broke into his bedroom, brandishing two kitchen knives and stabbed him in the chest.
Nouri, a former bodybuilder, described Alid shouting “Allahu Akbar”.
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He managed to kick Alid away and run for the door but was then attacked from behind and stabbed in the face, before grappling with Alid and getting him into a headlock.
One of his housemates, another Christian convert from Iran, helped bundle Alid out of the room and sat with their backs against the door as Alid kicked at it, attempting to get back in.
However, one of the knives had ended up in the corridor and Alid picked it up and went out on to the street where he passed Terrence Carney, circling back and approaching him from behind.
CCTV showed him stab Carney a number of times while his victim was “effectively defenceless” and crying out “no, no,” Jonathan Sandiford KC, prosecuting, told the court.
Armed police caught up with Alid nearby and he was arrested.
As he was taken to the police station on suspicion of terrorism offences, Alid was shown on bodyworn footage talking in Arabic, translated for the jury, in which he said: “For the people of Gaza inshallah [god willing].
“Inshallah Gaza will return to our country. I am Arab, I am Arab, I am Arab, it will return to Arab country. I am the son of Arabs, in the name of Allah.”
‘My intention was to kill more’
During his police interview, Alid, a fitness fanatic and fan of mixed martial arts, told the officers through an Arabic translator: “The whole issue is for the independence of Palestine. To have two dead victims is better than more.
“It is between the Zionist entity and Hamas movement. They set a specific time for shooting and if this Zionist occupation does not leave, here in Britain there will be [a] flood, unrest.”
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Asked if he intended to kill more people, Alid said: “I swear by Allah if I had a machine gun and I had more weapons that they would be in thousands.
“I was going to contact someone to get me a machine gun and I would have done more and then that person told me to carry on with the knife.”
He told the officers if it had not been for the wounds to his hands from the knife, he would have continued the killing.
“There would have been more lives. My intention was to kill more people, not only him,” he added, referring to Mr Carney.
In court, Alid withdrew his confession and claimed he had acted in self-defence after going into Nouri’s room to confront him about arguments in the house and getting attacked himself.
He claimed that he had then walked the streets shouting “free Palestine!” in a “loud voice” when he came across Mr Carney who told him to “go back to your country and stay there”.
The jury rejected his claim and found him guilty of murder.
In a statement, Mr Carney’s family said: “We would not want anyone else to have to go through what we have had to go through over the last six months, and what we will continue to go through for the rest of our lives. For us, things will never be the same again.
“We have watched the whole trial intently, and whilst today’s guilty verdict will not bring back Terence our beloved husband, father, and grandfather, we can take some small comfort in knowing that justice has been served.”
Rejected asylum claim
Alid, who said he left Morocco in 2007 after having a “problem” with the intelligence services, spent time in 13 different European countries before arriving in Britain.
Alid first arrived in Cadiz, Spain in 2007, and then travelled to France, Italy and Greece before returning to Italy where he lived and worked for nine months.
From Italy, he moved to Germany, where he lived between 2009 and 2011. He applied for asylum in Germany and was refused.
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After his release, he travelled to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, where he stayed for two months, hoping to set up a shop with someone from Somalia, but he was deported back to Germany.
He travelled to Switzerland and Vienna in Austria before eventually returning to Germany, where he lived between 2014 and 2018.
He then spent two years in Spain, before entering Britain illegally via a ferry in 2020.
He was arrested by the police during the COVID pandemic and told them he did not have any documents, resulting in him lodging a claim for asylum.
Alid was initially housed in a hotel in Hull before he was sent to “dispersal” lodgings in Wharton Terrace, Hartlepool.
Asked if he had been successful in applying for asylum during the three years he spent in Hartlepool, he said: “I didn’t get any answer.”
