The mother of an aspiring lawyer stabbed to death in a case of mistaken identity as he returned from a trip to Waitrose has spoken of her two-and-a-half year fight for justice.
Tory activist Jasna Badzak says she collapsed into a coma from stress when the trial of two drug dealers who killed her son Sven was delayed due to industrial action by barristers last summer.
Bedridden Ms Badzak was set to use a video link to attend today’s sentencing of Rashid Gedel, 22, from Ilford, and Shiroh Ambersley, also 22, from Wembley.
Both were found guilty of murder last month following a trial at the Old Bailey and face life sentences.
Mr Badzak, 22, privately educated before attending Roehampton University, was set upon by six young men who knifed him four times in an attack lasting just 20 seconds.
Paramedics pronounced him dead less than an hour later on the scene in Kilburn.
His 16-year-old friend was stabbed in the back but survived the attack by running to a nearby supermarket for help on February 6, 2021.
Ms Badzak, who wants to see mandatory jail sentences for anyone caught with a knife, told the Standard: “I hope life means life and they are never released.
“It will send out a powerful message to other gang members. I’m tired of people saying, ‘Oh it’s London’, as if we have to accept this. London never used to be like this.”
She said her son was “the most amazing person that ever existed.”
One alleged accomplice of the killers — the son of a respected diplomat — fled to the Ivory Coast via Manchester airport and two other suspects are still at large.
During the trial, prosecutor Anthony Orchard KC said the victims were targeted in a “gang-style attack” over what the killers regarded as their drugs territory and were “the unfortunate victims of mistaken identity.”
