A Moroccan national seeking asylum in the UK has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for stealing nearly GBP 3,000 worth of valuables from an Oxford University residence and damaging rare plants, including biting one, at the city’s historic Botanic Garden, The Telegraph reported.
Faida Elhabib, 31, reportedly broke into “The Professor’s House” at Magdalen College while its occupants were abroad, stealing jewellery, electronics, and food worth GBP 2,854, prosecutirs alleged at Oxford Crown Court.
Prosecutor Puneet Grewal said that soon after the burglary, Elhabib broke into a greenhouse at the neighbouring Oxford Botanical Garden, Britain’s oldest, where he smashed a window and damaged two “extremely rare” plants, an Anthorrhiza-echinella, a rare ant-plant from Papua New Guinea, and an epiphytic orchid described as “one of a kind.”
CCTV footage identified Elhabib, and police later recovered some of the stolen jewellery from his hotel room in Oxford. At the time of the offences, he was living in accommodations for asylum seekers, the news outlet added.
Elhabib, who now lives in Luton, UK, allegedly had 11 previous convictions for 16 offences. His defense lawyer, Peter Du Feu, said his client’s memory of the events was unclear and that he did not remember biting one of the plants.
Du Feu told the court that Moroccan intelligence services pursued Elhabib and claimed to have an “implant” that allowed them to track him across Europe.
Recorder John Bate-Williams noted that Elhabib’s mental condition “must have been influential on his behavior,” calling the offenses both “bizarre and damaging” to the victims and to Oxford’s natural heritage.
