who fled war-torn Homs<\/a> after being injured in a bombing, had been living in the West Yorkshire town for only a couple of weeks when he crossed paths with Franco, who had been for a jobcentre appointment that day and was going to buy eyelash glue with his girlfriend.<\/p>\nAhmad Al Ibrahim. Photograph: West Yorkshire police\/PA<\/p>\n
Leeds crown court heard that Franco \u2013 who had consumed cannabis, cocaine, diazepam, ketamine and codeine \u2013 took \u201csome petty exception\u201d to Ahmad \u201cinnocuously\u201d walking past his girlfriend in the street.<\/p>\n
CCTV footage showed Franco saying something to Ahmad, and calling him over after a short verbal altercation. As Ahmad walked over, Franco opened the blade on a flick knife he was carrying in his trousers and drove it into the boy\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n
Franco denied murder, but was found guilty by a jury who deliberated for just over three hours. He pleaded guilty to possessing a knife in a public place.<\/p>\n
While handing Franco his sentence on Friday, judge Howard Crowson said that upon seeing Ahmad, Franco \u201cidentified him as a target and lured him to within your range to strike before killing him\u201d. He said Franco\u2019s claim to have seen a weapon in Ahmad\u2019s waistband was \u201ca lie\u201d.<\/p>\n
Crowson said of Ahmad that \u201cit is a testament to the medical personnel trying to save his life and his will to live he even made it to the hospital alive, but in truth his wounds were unsurvivable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reading out a statement drafted by Ahmad\u2019s uncle Ghazwan Al Ibrahim, with input from his parents, Richard Wright KC told the court that the teenager\u2019s father had suffered a heart attack upon hearing the news of his son\u2019s death, causing him to require surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am unable to describe the impact of their heinous crime and the impact it had over everyone,\u201d the statement read. \u201cHis mother still cries over his clothes as they smell of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ghazwan, who said Ahmad was like a son to him and he felt ashamed he could not protect him, went on to state that Ahmad had thought he had found \u201cthe land of peace and the fulfilment of dreams\u201d in Britain, but instead was \u201ccruelly taken away by the senseless and unprovoked act\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Ahmad\u2019s uncle, I will always carry the guilt that Ahmad had come to the UK, and I could not keep him safe,\u201d he said in a statement after the sentencing. \u201cAhmad we love you, we miss you and we will do for ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court heard Ahmad had travelled for three months to reach the UK from Syria, stopping in a refugee centre for teenagers in Swansea and attending college in the Welsh city before arriving in Huddersfield. The teenager had aspired to be a doctor, driven in part by a desire to look after his mother, who suffered from a chronic medical issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years for murdering a teenage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-488643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}