A rapper who stabbed a teenager to death had previously taken part in a 'knife crime prevention programme' and sung about 'extreme knife violence', a court heard. King Sibanda, 17, murdered Abdikarim Abdalla Ahmed on a Friday afternoon in Bury town centre near a busy shopping centre.
Sibanda knifed the 18-year-old after Mr Ahmed, known to friends as Abdi, had thrown a punch at him. Earlier that afternoon Abdi had called his older brother, 19-year-old Faisal Ahmed, after he'd been punched by a 15-year-old boy.
Abdi was stabbed to death by Sibanda, then 16, with a combat knife as he and his brother went looking for those responsible for the earlier attack. Manchester Crown Court heard that Sibanda had an 'established history' of carrying knives.
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After being brought before the courts he took part in a knife crime prevention programme called 'Behind the Blade', which focused on the 'hazards' of carrying knives and the 'consequent risk of serious harm and death'. In the year before the killing, Sibanda had posted a rap online 'in which he appeared to glorify the use of extreme knife violence', prosecutor Alaric Bassano said.
Lyrics included 'I’m still tryna take man’s life', 'jump out aiming for lungs or heart' and 'I’ll leave your rib cage open'. Sibanda has now been sentenced to the youth equivalent of a life sentence, detention at His Majesty's pleasure.
He will serve at least 15 years before he can be considered for release by the Parole Board. Sibanda can be named for the first time, following an application by the Manchester Evening News to remove reporting restrictions previously imposed due to him being under the age of 18.
The judge said it was 'strongly in the public interest' that Sibanda's identity should now be revealed. Sentencing, Judge Patrick Field KC said: "It is clear that this case demonstrates, yet again, the tragic and utterly needless waste that results from knife crime.
"One young man is dead, and leaves behind him a grieving mother and a grieving family. There is no sentence that I can pass that will repair that loss."
He told Sibanda: "You will spent the rest of your youth and much of your young adulthood in custody. All of this because you carried and used a knife, no doubt believing you could do so with impunity."
After his death, Abdi's mother said: "My beautiful boy Abdi passed away far too young and with his whole life ahead of him, he was taken from us too soon, and in the worst possible way. My boy was a victim of knife crime, I beg all parents to speak to their children and know what’s going on in their lives, before their child is taken away."
The court was told of her 'extreme grief' following the death of her child, who she described as a 'loving, caring person who helped and looked after his family from a young age'. Prosecutors told how on March 11 last year, Sibanda was armed with a 10cm knife with the words 'combat and tactical' on its blade.
The judge said it was 'no household implement'. "It seems to have been made for the purposes of causing injury," he added.
Sibanda stabbed Abdi, who had come to the UK as a refugee as a boy with his family, once to his armpit near an entrance to the Mill Gate shopping centre. He stabbed him with such force that it cut through one of his ribs.
Abdi died about 90 minutes after paramedics rushed to a nearby bar, where he had desperately sought help while clutching his chest
Sibanda fled and threw the knife in a bin, before taking a taxi to Bolton and disposing of some of his clothes. In 2019, Sibanda received a caution for carrying a knife in public.
The following year, he received 'convictions for offences involving use of a knife in public places'. And just 10 days before the killing, a youth worker saw a knife fall out of the defendant's pocket during a meeting with him.
Two days prior to Abdi's death the defendant had texted a friend, the 15-year-old who punched Abdi, and said 'let’s go cop a shank', slang for a knife. In August last year, Sibanda was found guilty of murder and pleaded guilty to possessing a knife.
His barrister Bernard Richmond KC described him as a 'very troubled young man' who reacted to a 'situation which was without warning'. "Ultimately there was, from the people who were attacking King Sibanda, a desire to cause him serious harm themselves," Mr Richmond said.
"There was a genuine need for him to defend himself," the KC said, adding Sibanda's reaction was 'disproportionate in the circumstances'. Mr Richmond read out a letter penned by Sibanda.
In the letter he said: "I am deeply shocked that Abdi died. It saddens me that those close to him will never see him again.
"I didn't want or mean for this to happen. I didn't want anyone to get hurt that day.
"I was put in a situation I didn't want to be confronted with. The decision I made was a split second one.
"I am not evil. I have made mistakes in my life, but I have also been forced into situations which were hard and which anyone would struggle to get out of."
Sibanda said he 'really tried to change' his life after spending time in secure accommodation. "But it was a lot harder than I thought," he continued.
"I even started to go to college to get away from it. But before I knew it my life ended up again like this. It is sad because I come from a good family, not a lucky one.
"I hope that one day I will be with them. Much as I don't agree with the fact that this situation has led me to be labelled a murderer, I believe that God has a plan with me and that fair justice and fair consequence will be expressed today."
The judge said that Sibanda, of Kearsley, Bolton, had been 'exploited' by others and 'introduced into a world of serous and violent crime at a very young age'. "However terrible and tragic the death of any human being is, there are very substantial mitigating factors here," Mr Richmond said.
But the judge told Sibanda: "You were not forced to carry a knife on this occasion, you chose to carry it. You chose to have it with you, should the need arise."
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