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A 22-year-old man has been found guilty of murdering a Saudi Arabian student who was stabbed in the neck while in Cambridge on a 10-week placement studying English.
A trial at Cambridge Crown Court was told that Mohammed Algasim, 20, was attacked outside student accommodation neat the city’s train station late on August 1 last year.
Prosecutors said he was fatally stabbed by Chas Corrigan, a man he had never met before, in an “unprovoked and senseless act of violence”.
Corrigan, of Holbrook Road, Cambridge, denied the murder of Mr Algasim but was found guilty by a jury following two hours and nine minutes of deliberation, a court officer said.
Corrigan, who had admitted being in possession of a knife, is due to be sentenced at the same court on Wednesday, the court officer said.
Prosecutor Nicholas Hearn had told jurors that Corrigan had been drinking in a pub and may have taken drugs before stabbing Mr Algasim with a kitchen knife.
He said that the stabbing was “captured by a high-quality CCTV camera positioned outside the student accommodation”, and footage of this was played to the jury.
It showed Mr Algasim sitting on a low wall with a group of others around him when Corrigan – in a hi-vis jacket – walks towards the group.
Mr Hearn said a fellow student of Mr Algasim, Abdullah Bin Shuail, “heard the defendant say something to Mr Algasim but he could not hear what was said and he could not hear whether Mr Algasim said anything in reply”.
He said Corrigan walked away from the group towards the train station.
Mr Hearn said that as the defendant walked away Mr Bin Shuail heard Mr Algasim say something to the defendant but “could only make out one word, ‘centre’”.
“When Mr Algasim said this the defendant turned and started to come back towards them,” Mr Hearn said.
The prosecutor said the defendant said ‘what did you say, what did you say?’ and that this was “in a very angry and aggressive way”.
He said Mr Bin Shuail “saw the defendant punch Mr Algasim hard to the left side of his neck” and “then saw that the defendant was holding a large knife in his right hand”.
Mr Algasim died of a single stab wound which cut across the carotid artery and jugular vein “causing massive bleeding”, Mr Hearn said.
Mr Hearn said that Mr Algasim “posed no threat to anybody”.
He said Mr Algasim “was a student who had come to Cambridge from Saudi Arabia”.
Corrigan, who claimed that he had the knife with him to frighten off any attacker and claimed he did not realise he had made contact with Mr Algasim, has been remanded in custody until his sentencing.