LONDON (AP) — A Moroccan asylum seeker who stabbed a British pensioner to death in revenge for Israel’s war against Hamas was sentenced Friday to at least 45 years in prison for what a judge called a terrorist act.
Ahmed Alid told police after his arrest that he killed 70-year-old Terence Carney in the town of Hartlepool in northeast England because “Israel had murdered innocent children.”
“They killed children and I killed an old man,” he said during interrogation.
Prosecutors said that on October 15 – eight days after the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza – Alid attacked his roommate, Iranian asylum seeker Javed Nouri, with a knife while he slept. Nouri survived. Alid then ran outside, met Carney on a morning walk and stabbed him six times.
Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford said Alid told police that “if he had had a machine gun and more weapons, he would have killed more victims.”
Alid, 45, had denied the charges against him. Although he admitted stabbing the men, he said he did not intend to kill or cause serious harm.
A jury at Teesside Crown Court last month found Alid guilty of one count of murder, one count of attempted murder and two counts of assaulting police officers during his post-arrest interview.
Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb sentenced Alid to life in prison with no chance of parole for 45 years. He said he had shown “no genuine remorse or compassion” for his victims.
“The murder of Terence Carney was an act of terrorism hoped to influence the British government,” she said. “You hoped to frighten the British people and undermine the freedoms they enjoy.”
In a victim impact statement, the victim’s wife, Patricia Carney, said she could no longer go into the city because it was “too painful” to be near where her husband was killed.
Nouri, a convert to Christianity, said the attack had destroyed his sense of security.
“I expected to be arrested and killed in my home country for converting to Christianity, but I did not expect to be attacked here in my sleep,” his statement said. “How is it possible for someone to destroy someone’s life because of their religion?”
