Aquitted: Mohammed Kahar, 19, walks free from court.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Abdulla Awil Mohammed, aged 18, died on Coleridge Road in Darnall after being hit on the head by a road sign which was toppled over by a car driving towards him and his Somali friends.
The front seat passenger in the car - 19-year-old Bengali man Mohammed Kahar, of Swarcliffe Road, Darnall - was charged with manslaughter after the death.
But following more than seven hours of deliberations, Kahar was acquitted by a jury at Sheffield Crown Court.
The Star can now reveal for the first time that the driver of the red Kia Picanto which killed Abdulla - 20-year-old Aminur Rahman, of Jubilee Road, Darnall - admitted manslaughter.
And Kahar’s fellow passenger, Nizamul Hoque, 19, of Willow Drive, Darnall, admitted causing violent disorder after a manslaughter charge against him was dropped.
Another passenger in the car, Muhibur Jahangir, 20, of Flaxby Road, Darnall, walked free after the case against him was dropped.
During Kahar’s trial, the prosecution said the car was driven deliberately towards the group, following clashes between Bengali and Somali youths.
The court heard the car crossed from one side of Coleridge Road to the other, before mounting the pavement and speeding nine metres towards a group of Somali teenagers.
The car hit three of them before crashing into a sign which fell on Abdulla, a Hallam University civil engineering student from Burngreave.
Kahar - described in court as a ‘computer geek’ - told jurors he was checking his mobile phone when the car suddenly swerved onto the pavement.
“The only thing in my mind was getting an ambulance for this lad,” he said, adding: “I’m not a fighter.”
A recording of Kahar’s frantic 999 call, made while Abdulla lay dying, was played to the court.
Kahar, who was suspended from his computing course at Leeds Metropolitan University after being charged, said he felt ‘shocked and confused’ following the fatal incident in March.
“If I’d known anything like his would have happened, I would have stayed at home,” he told the court.
Kahar’s sister Fatima Begum, 25, also took to the witness box, telling jurors her brother was ‘the peacemaker of the family’.
“I’ve never known him to get involved in any violence,” she said.
Kahar said he was only joking when he texted Hoque, saying, ‘We know where they are’ and asking his pal to ‘bring a strap’ - slang for gun.
Rahman and Hoque will be sentenced on Monday.