Asylum seeker who stabbed aspiring marine to death received nearly £40,000 in legal aid
20 March 2023, 16:31 | Updated: 20 March 2023, 16:33
An asylum seeker who posed as a schoolboy to enter the UK before stabbing a man to death in a row over an e-scooter received nearly £40,000 in legal aid.
Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, 21, murdered aspiring marine Thomas Roberts, 21, outside a Subway in Bournemouth, Dorset, on March 12 last year.
Before he'd even reached Britain, Abdulrahimzai had already murdered two fellow Afghans in Serbia following an argument over what may have been related to the people-trafficking business, a court heard.
Abdulrahimzai, who had also sold drugs in Italy, was 18 when he came to the UK, but managed to convince authorities he was a 14-year-old boy whose parents had been killed by the Taliban.
He was placed with a foster carer despite having been convicted in his absence for gunning down two people in Serbia with an AK-47 assault rifle.
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Now, it has emerged that nearly £40,000 in taxpayers' cash was spent on legal aid for Abdulrahimzai, who was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 29 years in the UK in January.
FOI data gathered by The Sun shows he received £39,776 in legal aid which went towards a barrister at trial ad a solicitor for Abdulrahimzai's police interviews. A source told the paper: “He was laughing in the face of justice."
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Mr Roberts, 21, had been acting as a "peacemaker" after his friend James Medway got into a row with Abdulrahimzai over an e-scooter left outside a Subway sandwich shop in March, 2022, Salisbury Crown Court heard.
During the 24-second confrontation, Mr Roberts slapped Abdulrahimzai in the face.
Abdulrahimzai then pulled out a knife he had concealed between the two pairs of trousers he had on, stabbed Mr Roberts twice, and ran away into nearby woodland.
After the attack he buried the weapon, before burning the jacket, trousers, and an Afghan flag he was wearing as a scarf.
Police were said to have been warned seven times before the incident that Abdulrahimzai carried a knife, it has been claimed.
