Thugs who killed man for his BlackBerry jailed for nine years

12 April 2012

Three robbers were jailed for nine years each today for killing a man for his BlackBerry phone which they sold for £60 and a chicken dinner.

Armenian Roshan Samedov, 18, and Iranians Jegir Ahmmadi, 20, and Awat Muradi, 18, were found guilty of manslaughter and robbery last month.

Saravanakumar Sellappan, 24, was knocked to the ground after the robbers saw him talking on his phone in Thornton Heath as he walked home from a late shift at a petrol station last October.

He became unconscious the following morning and died from a brain injury after being sent home from hospital. Judge Michael Mettyear, at the Old Bailey, said: "This was a violent robbery on a street on a wholly innocent victim."

Mr Sellappan, the only son of a family in India, did not report the robbery and when friends took him to hospital, said he had fallen down stairs. But the pathologist told police the head injury could not be from such a fall. The judge said the overriding factor in convicting the killers had been CCTV cameras.

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