A man stabbed to death in a suspected gang ambush had been badly wounded in a frenzied knife attack alongside Lee Rigby’s killer Michael Adebowale, it was revealed today.
Ahmed Ahmed, 24, was killed outside his family home in Plumstead, south-east London, on Monday after he had gone to reason with up to eight youths who had threatened two of his friends. Detectives are investigating reports of an earlier dispute in the area of Barnfield Road before the attack at 6.25pm.
Today it emerged that Mr Ahmed and Adebowale were both victims of an attack in 2008 in which another associate, Faridon Alizada, 18, was murdered.
They were at a flat in Erith when a bare-knuckle fighter high on cocaine and armed with a kitchen knife burst in and attacked them.
Mr Ahmed was stabbed in the neck with the blade penetrating his spine and spent months in hospital recovering. He was left with nerve damage to his hands and arms.
Adebowale was stabbed in the back and shoulder. Lee James, 32, was later sentenced to 26 years for the killing. The two men are thought to have been classmates at Kidbrooke School.
Adebowale, the least seriously injured of the three, converted to Islam and went on to become radicalised, disappearing from the Greenwich area for a year.
He returned eight months before Mr Rigby was hacked to death near Woolwich Barracks in May 2013. He was given a life sentence to serve a minimum of 45 years last July.
Today Mr Ahmed’s family told the Standard that he and Adebowale were “never friends” and that Mr Ahmed had condemned Mr Rigby’s killing as “disgusting”.
Sacha, one of his three sisters, told the Standard: “He was not a friend of that man [Adebowale], they were just in the same place at that time. He did not agree with any of those things. He was an honest, humble guy.” Miss Ahmed paid tribute to “a great brother” with a “brilliant sense of humour” as she appealed for his killers to hand themselves in.
The victim’s distraught mother called for an end to knife crime and said: “We came to England for a better life. This should not be happening here.”
Mr Ahmed was found by his mother and sister at the bottom of a stairwell at their third-floor flat in Plumstead with several stab wounds to his front and back.
Mulki Ahmed, 47, originally from Somalia, and sister Sacha, 26, tried desperately to save him, but he died when his heart stopped once he reached hospital.
The pair said he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” as he went downstairs to reason with the gang.
They told how Mr Ahmed was released from prison more than a year ago for drug dealing but was determined to turn his life around and was due to start a college course with the aim of becoming a mechanic.
Miss Ahmed said: “He was really funny and he would cheer everyone up if they were down.
“He had just enrolled in a course at college to learn about car mechanics as he wanted to open his own garage. He was a great brother and has four nieces and nephews who he absolutely loved to pieces.”
Miss Ahmed told how she was at home when the gang arrived outside demanding to speak to Mr Ahmed’s two friends.
She said: “There was a dispute. I don’t know what it was about but the group of boys and they were not getting on.
“They wanted to speak to the two friends but Ahmed wanted to defend them and speak to them. He went downstairs to reason with them and they just ambushed him on the ground floor.”
His sister added: “The people who did this to him were jealous, bad-minded people.”
Detectives were today appealing for witnesses to help trace eight men who fled the scene.
Anyone with information should call the incident room on 020 8721 4868, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
