Thursday, July 26, 2007
Hannad Hasan, 17, from north London, was found guilty of the murder of schoolboy Kiyan Prince, a members of the Queens Park Rangers youth team.
The 15-year-old was stabbed to death outside the gates of the London Academy in Edgware in May last year.
Judge Paul Worsley said Hasan should be deported on his release from prison.
"You stabbed him in order to show off to your friends and to seek to show a superiority over a boy who you thought fitter and stronger than you," he told the Old Bailey.
Prince, described as a great prospect by QPR, died after he intervened in a fight between one of his friends and Hasan.
As he slumped to the ground after being stabbed, he asked his killer: "Why, why have you done this to me?" The boy's father, Mark Prince, told the court the murder had shattered his family's lives.
"We are still shocked and traumatised by it. I don't think we will come to terms with it ever," he said in a statement.
Hasan came to Britain from Somalia as a refugee in 2001 and had a history of violence at school. At the time of the attack he had been excluded for urinating in front of a female teacher and threatening another.
In police interviews played to the court, Hasan cried and apologised to the victim's mother.
"I am hoping his mum can forgive me," he said. "I am terribly sorry. I know how my mum would feel, so I know how his mum would feel as well."
Detective Chief Inspector Alistair Tully said he hoped the sentence would deter teenagers from carrying knives.
"One act of violence has devastated and ruined the lives of so many," he said.
Source: Reuters, July 26, 2007