UK let in killer Afghan before he murdered aspiring marine Thomas Roberts

An Afghan asylum seeker who murdered an aspiring Royal Marine posed as a child to enter the UK despite having been convicted of a double murder in Serbia and denied asylum in Norway.

Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, who also had drug convictions in Italy, convinced British officials he was 14 when he arrived in 2019, and was subsequently placed in foster care and enrolled at school. In fact he was 18 years old.

Nicola Marchant-Jones, his foster mother in 2020 and 2021, said he was a “very troubled individual” who got into fights, and that she was always worried “he would do something with a knife”.

She told social services he needed counselling but was told his asylum seeker status made him ineligible.

Abdulrahimzai, now 21, was convicted yesterday of murdering Thomas Roberts, 21, in Bournemouth by twice plunging a knife into his chest.

The hopeful marine had been trying to stop an argument between his friend James Medway, 24, and Abdulrahimzai on March 12 last year.

Wearing a balaclava and the Afghan flag around his neck, Abdulrahimzai stabbed Roberts with a ten-inch knife.

After his conviction, Salisbury crown court was told the asylum seeker had previously been sentenced under an assumed name in Serbia to 20 years in jail in his absence, after a trial over the killing of two Afghans in the summer of 2018. He had also been convicted of drug dealing in Italy in February 2017 and given a non-custodial sentence.

Tobias Ellwood, the MP for Bournemouth East, said the Home Office had “to answer some very serious questions” and called for an investigation into “how such a dangerous individual slipped through the net”.

Dorset police said Abdulrahimzai was not marked on any police systems within the UK as having convictions. It said that any conviction from outside the UK held by foreign citizens was “a matter for other agencies”. Nic Lobbenberg KC, for the prosecution, said Abdulrahimzai was using the name “Huan Yasin” when he carried out a double murder in the village of Dobrinci, a 45-minute drive from Belgrade.

He said Abdulrahimzai got into an argument with two fellow Afghans “about the business of transporting migrants” before using a Kalashnikov to shoot 12 rounds into his victims from as little as three metres away.

Abdulrahimzai, who fled Serbia, was identified by a taxi driver who drove him from the scene. In November 2020 he was convicted of murder in his absence.

Judge Paul Dugdale said: “This only became apparent to the UK authorities after the commission of this offence we have been dealing with in this trial.”

Abdulrahimzai left Afghanistan at some point before October 2015, claiming his parents were murdered by the Taliban for working with Nato and selling alcohol. He said he was stabbed 28 times during torture before being left for dead. The jury was shown photographs of scarring all over his body.

Abdulrahimzai said his uncle, who helped him to escape Afghanistan, had told him to use the incorrect age he had given to the UK authorities.

The court heard he reached Serbia through Pakistan and Iran in 2015 before travelling on to Norway, where his fingerprints were taken. He was next recorded as being in Italy but on June 26, 2017, he was recorded back in Serbia under a different name.

Abdulrahimzai returned to Norway in October 2018 and his asylum application was refused in December 2019. He left, fearing deportation, and arrived in Poole, Dorset, on Boxing Day 2019 after catching a ferry from Cherbourg.

When he arrived in England he told the Home Office he was 14, and when arrested for murder in March 2022 he said gave his age as 16. However, a hearing held in the run up to the murder trial used evidence from a dental examination to declare he was born in 2001.

Abdulrahimzai denied murder but admitted manslaughter. He was convicted of murder by a majority of 10 jurors after 12 hours of deliberations and will be sentenced tomorrow.

Last night, the Home Office said that foreign criminals were removed at the “earliest opportunity,” although the UK has suspended deportations to Afghanistan. It said that all asylum claimants underwent security screening against their “claimed identity”, adding: “The government is committed to stopping abuse of the immigration system, taking decisive action against those who try to play the system.”