By Omar Bah
A 24-year-old Gambian man has been jailed for life for the murder of a Sudanese refugee who fled civil war to seek safety in Britain.
According to court documents seen by The Standard, Abdou Sillah stabbed Kiirpal Nhian, 29, to death in a Birmingham HMO, inflicting 28 knife wounds before fleeing and leaving his victim to crawl and die at a garden gate.
Sillah, of Albert Road, Aston, who came to the UK from The Gambia in 2012, was convicted of murder and possession of a knife in public. He was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday, 28 September to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 years.
The court heard Sillah visited the HMO at Swanage Road, Small Heath on 20 December last year with a view to moving in. He did not know Mr Nhian, a stranger who happened to be in the kitchen.
What started as an unexplained confrontation in the kitchen turned into a savage attack. Sillah pulled a knife he was carrying and stabbed Mr Nhian 28 times to his face, chest, back, leg, neck, forearm and hands, including three fatal penetrating wounds to the chest.
The Sudanese national, bleeding heavily, managed to stagger out of the kitchen door into the garden where his body was later found near the back gate. Police said low-level blood staining showed he had crouched or crawled in his final moments.
Judge Richard Bond called it a needless tragedy that should never have happened.
“This was a senseless taking of a human life simply because you had armed yourself with a knife ready to be used if you got into a confrontation with anybody,” the judge told Sillah.
He ruled that even if Sillah initially felt threatened, using a knife was wholly disproportionate and he ultimately intended to kill.
The court heard Mr Nhian was one of seven children who survived war in Sudan, torture and detention in Libya, and crossed the Channel in a small boat in 2022 to reach the UK. He was granted humanitarian protection until January 2030.
“He attended college to improve his English. He enjoyed reading and visiting the library. He is described as humble, quiet, kind and hard-working. His Christian faith was important to him. He wanted to work, support his family and build a new and peaceful life,” Judge Bond said.
“He had lived through considerable adversity and trauma. He had nevertheless begun to regard this country as a place of safety.”
In mitigation, Anand Beharrylal KC said Sillah, assessed with an extremely low IQ of 67, had limited ability to interpret the situation and reacted defensively with unreasonable force. He said Sillah carried a knife for protection due to dangers in his accommodation.
Sillah has served 278 days on remand which will count towards his sentence.