A man who stabbed a 16-year-old Syrian refugee in the neck after he brushed past his girlfriend has been jailed for life with a minimum of 23 years.
Alfie Franco, 20, was convicted on Thursday of murdering Ahmad Al Ibrahim on a busy shopping street in Huddersfield earlier this year.
Ahmad, who fled war-torn Homs as an unaccompanied child refugee after being injured in a bombing, had only been living in the West Yorkshire town for a couple of weeks.
Jurors at Leeds Crown Court heard that on 3 April, Ahmad, whose parents said he had dreamed of being a doctor, was walking around the town with a friend – while Franco was going to buy eyelash glue with his girlfriend after a Jobcentre appointment.
When they crossed paths, prosecutors said Franco took “some petty exception” to Ahmad “innocuously” walking past his girlfriend.
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CCTV footage showed Franco saying something to Ahmad, before calling him over after a short verbal altercation.
As Ahmad walked over, Franco opened the blade on a flick knife he was carrying and drove it into the teenager’s neck.
The court heard Franco had used cannabis before the encounter.
Later tests also revealed he had recently used cocaine, diazepam, ketamine and codeine.
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Prosecutor Richard Wright KC said during the trial that “to plunge that knife into someone’s neck who has done no more than walk towards you after you’ve engaged them in some verbal argy-bargy in the street… that’s not reasonable self-defence”.
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During the trial, Franco told the court he thought he had seen Ahmad reaching for a weapon in his waistband during the altercation and said he had only been aiming for the boy’s cheek, and wanted to “cut him and get away”.
Mr Wright added: “This is a case of a young man with a cocky swagger, wandering around town with his girlfriend, on drugs, who doesn’t like the fact that Ahmad has spoken back to him.”
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