An asylum seeker has been found guilty of murdering a hotel worker at a train station in the West Midlands.
Prosecutors said Deng Chol Majek was caught on CCTV following Rhiannon Skye Whyte from the Park Inn hotel, in Walsall, where she worked, to the nearby Bescot Stadium station.
She was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver 19 times, and 23 times in total, on 20 October last year.
Majek, who is from Sudan and claims to be 19 years old, had told Wolverhampton Crown Court he was at the hotel for asylum seekers at the time the 27-year-old was attacked.
He said he had never spoken to her during the three months he lived at the hotel.
Answering questions from defence KC Gurdeep Garcha through an interpreter, who translated his replies, Majek said he “never had a problem with anyone” at the hotel and had never noticed Ms Whyte while he was staying there.
Asked by Mr Garcha if he was at the train station when Ms Whyte was stabbed, Majek replied: “No.”
He also denied being “responsible for that fatal assault” on the platform.
Asked where he was at the time of the attack, he said: “I was staying in the hotel, outside.”
He also claimed he had never had an argument with Ms Whyte and said there were no issues between them.
Majek said he had spent time in Libya, Italy and Germany before arriving in the UK to claim asylum in July last year.
Be the first to get Breaking News
Install the Sky News app for free
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
