An A-level student was stabbed 14 times in the back by teenage gang members in a case of mistaken identity, the Old Bailey heard today.
Kwame Ofosu-Asare, 17, was killed because he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, the jury was told.
The ambitious actor and footballer was chased into a cul-de-sac then knifed and left to die.
His alleged killers, Nelson Idiabeta, 18, and Nathaniel Okusanya, 19, were in the TN1 or Trust No-one gang based in Tulse Hill, the court heard. They had decided to take revenge on the GAS or Guns and Shanks gang based in Brixton after one of their number was stabbed in March, and had taken a taxi to the Moorlands Estate looking for a target.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC told the court: “Kwame was not a member of either gang. He was killed for no reason other than his murderers had come upon him on an estate they considered to be enemy territory and at a time when they were looking to take revenge for the stabbing of one of their own only hours earlier.”
Jurors heard Idiabeta lived at a hostel in Camberwell and had been at court on the morning of the murder. In the afternoon he and Okusanya went to King’s College Hospital to visit their friend who had been stabbed in West Norwood. CCTV shows they then travelled to a shopping centre in Camberwell to buy a knife from a Bargain Express, the court heard. When the shopkeeper refused to sell them the knife they got two men “who were stupid enough” to help, said Mr Aylett.
They arrived at the edge of the Moorlands at 5.30pm as Kwame, who lived in Catford, happened to be walking through the estate with a friend.
“They found themselves being chased by two youths,” said Mr Aylett. The teenagers ran into a side street hoping to reach the friend’s aunt’s house but she was not at home. Kwame’s friend climbed over a wall but Kwame was trapped, the court heard. Neighbours attempted to give first aid after the attack but he bled to death at the scene.
Okusanya, of Brixton, and Idiabeta both deny murder.
Kwame, a sixth form student at Forest Hill School, moved from Ghana to London 10 years ago. Members of his family were in court to hear the opening of the case. The trial continues.
