A Moroccan asylum seeker has been convicted 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.
Police arrested Alid close to the murder scene with a bloody knife in his waistband, and he later told officers that he had acted because of the Israel-Hamas war, the court heard.
“He said he had wanted to kill them because of the conflict in Gaza and to further his desire that Palestine would be free from the Zionists, by which he meant Israel,” prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford said.
“The defendant said he would have killed more people if he had been able to do so.”
Sandiford added Alid had described Carney as an “innocent victim” during his interrogation, but that he had been killed “because Britain had created the Zionist entity — Israel — and should make it leave.”
“They killed children and I killed an old man,” he told officers, the prosecutor said.
Yorkshire’s Cleveland Police’s Deputy Chief Constable Victoria Fuller said the killing “shook the local community to its core.”
“Alid’s actions not only left a family devastated but also caused significant fear and distress amongst residents in Hartlepool and beyond,” she said.
Alid will be sentenced on May 17.
