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UK Muslim teenager stabbed to death by white gang Muslim teenager stabbed to death by white gang
By Paul Stokes
ahmed-hassan.jpgA MUSLIM teenager described as a model sixth-form pupil died after being stabbed in the back by a group of white youths at a train station.
Police were last night investigating whether Ahmed Hassan, 17, was the victim of a racially motivated assault.
He died from a single stab wound in an unprovoked attack as he waited for a train in Dewsbury, West Yorks.
His head teacher yesterday paid tribute to “an articulate, thoughtful and kind A-level student whose ambition was to read law at university”.
Another teacher said: “If the world was full of Ahmed Hassans it would be a very much better place.”
Ahmed and two friends were waiting at the station at about 2pm on Saturday to go to the Trafford Centre in Manchester to buy clothes for tomorrow’s Muslim festival of Eid. They had done nothing to antagonise the others, who started a confrontation during which one produced a knife and plunged it into Ahmed’s back.
An off-duty police constable gave chase and managed to catch one of the suspects as they fled the scene at Dewsbury station, West Yorks.
Last night three youths aged 17, 18 and 19 were being questioned in connection with the incident.
There have been tensions in the town since it emerged that one of the London suicide bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, lived there. But detectives are keeping an open mind on whether there are racial undertones to the murder and the suspects are thought to come from the Huddersfield area, 10 miles away.
Ahmed was in his second year of A-levels at Heckmondwike Grammar School, where assemblies were held for him yesterday. Mark Tweedle, the head teacher, said: “His ambition was to read law at university and to that end he was studying A-level politics, mathematics, law and economics. Popular with staff and peers alike, Ahmed will be greatly missed.”
Ahmed lived with his parents Ibrahim, 37, and Yasmin, 36, in a semi-detached house in Batley. The family own several drapery and upholstery stores. Speaking outside the home yesterday an uncle said: “His family is grieving and are too distressed to talk. We want justice to be done in court, and justice to be done in the hereafter.”
Prayers were said for the family at churches of different faiths in the area on Sunday.
Shahid Malik, the Labour MP for Dewsbury, said after visiting the family: “This was a complete innocent, a young man who has no history of trouble. He encountered people that have evil intent.”
Another teenager was knifed to death in London at the weekend, becoming the 17th teenager to die in a stabbing in the capital this year.
David Nowak, 16, was killed after a fight outside a community centre in Stoke Newington became a mass brawl.
A gang of 12 teenagers remained in custody yesterday in connection with the stabbing on Farleigh Road at 11pm on Saturday night.
A 15-year-old boy was also stabbed but his injuries are not life-threatening. Residents said the birthday party, in nearby Shacklewell Road, had begun quietly but spiralled out of control after gangs of youths turned up and tried to gatecrash the event.
An argument broke out, which degenerated into a mass brawl that culminated in the fatal stabbing.
The victim is Turkish but the attack is not thought to have been racially motivated.
Voilet Kozlowska, 46, of Farleigh Road said: “I saw a gang of around 20 to 25 kids and then an ambulance came.
“I saw them take the boy to the ambulance on a stretcher. At that time, he was moving.”
Mrs Kozlowska said some of the gang ran off as police arrived. It is believed officers later stopped a bus which was leaving the area and arrested several youths on board.
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