A father who was released without charge after ploughing his car into a knife attacker to try to stop him killing a woman has said it was his “duty” to act.
Abraham, 26, who was originally arrested on suspicion of murder, said he had prayed for God’s forgiveness following the incident in Maida Vale, west London.
Yasmin Chkaifi, 43, a mother of two, died on 24 January when she was ambushed in the street by her former partner, Leon McCaskie, 41, who also used the surname McCaskre.
Witnesses had tried unsuccessfully to stop McCaskie before Abraham ran him over with his blue Renault Clio. McCaskie was pronounced dead at the scene.
Abraham, reportedly an electrician and married father with two children aged under five, told the Daily Mail: “Should you see an evil it is your duty to stop it with your hands.
“If you cannot, then you should stop it by speaking out. So I was thinking: ‘How could I face God if I don’t help? It is my duty, my religion.’ In that moment I knew I had to act.”
Abraham, originally from Chechnya, said he was on his way to work when he heard shouting and screaming and saw a man with a steel blade in his hand stab a woman on the floor three times in the chest, an experience that left him “shocked and terrified”.
He said: “I thought: ‘I cannot go away and leave her.’ I had to help, to try to save her. I did not have time to consider. I thought the safest and quickest option was to push the man away from the woman with my car.
“So I put my car into first gear and drove up the kerb and on to the pavement. It was a short distance, 10 or 12ft, and I pushed him, I made an impact. I managed to avoid the woman.
“Then I took my foot off the gas but my car didn’t stop. The momentum continued and I knew the man was under my car. I opened the door and I saw his hand sticking out from under it. That sight stays with me and always will: the man’s hand sticking out.
“My car hit a garden wall and stalled and I tried to reverse but the engine wouldn’t turn over. I kept trying to start the car, to free the man, but I couldn’t. I shouted for help.”
The Metropolitan police originally launched a murder investigation against the 26-year-old, but said on Tuesday that investigators had reviewed the law around self-defence and defence of another person, and now considered Abraham “a vital witness”, rather than a suspect.
Det Ch Insp Neil Rawlinson, who has led the investigation, added that Abraham would be “offered support from professionals to help him come to terms with the terrifying situation he was confronted with”.
More than 75,000 people had signed a petition in support of Abraham, and his lawyer, Tasnime Akunjee, said members of Chkaifi’s family had hailed him as “a hero”, called for his release and were in the process of arranging a private meeting with him.
Abraham said he was in “shock” when he was arrested.
He added: “I took my head in my hands and thought: ‘How has this happened?’ I’d tried to save a woman’s life and I’d killed a man. I said a prayer: ‘God forgive me for what I have done.”’
McCaskie, it emerged, was wanted by police after failing to turn up to court on 4 January over allegations that he had breached a stalking order by approaching Chkaifi in west London in July last year.
