A crazed landlord who battered his tenant to death

A crazed landlord who battered his tenant to death with a hammer in an apparently motiveless attack was jailed for life today.

(mon)

Jobless Mohamed Ismail, 22, struck terrified flatmate Mahamud Ibrahim 37 times during a frenzied assault.

Then he fled London and lived in hostels for the homeless under a false name, the trial heard.

Mr Ibrahim’s maggot-ridden body was found in a pool of blood by police six days after the killing when neighbours complained about a smell from the flat.

A jury took a matter of minutes to unanimously convict Ismail of murder and Judge Fabyan Evans told him simply:

‘There is only one sentence that I can pass for the offence of murder and that is one of life imprisonment.

You may go down.

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Ismail, of Dolphin Tower, Pepys Estate, Deptford, denied the charge.

Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court in central London heard how the gruesome murder took place at Ismail’s home last summer.

Prosecuting QC Jeffrey Pegden said: ‘At the present time there is no apparent motive for this killing.

‘This was a frenzied, persistent, and vicious attack upon the deceased.

‘A post mortem found that he died from severe head injuries.

‘There were at least 37 lacerations about the head, which were consistent with heavy blows from a circular object such as a hammer.

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It is believed the attack at Ismail’s flat on the Pepys Estate in Deptford, south London, took place on August 19 last year.

But the body was not found until August 25 after a neighbour noticed an appalling smell and contacted police.

Mr Pegden said: ‘Officers forced the door open, and inside they found Mahamud Ibrahim dead on the living room floor in a pool of blood.

‘He was covered with a sheet.

There were marks and splatterings of blood on the walls, on the floor, and on the furniture.

‘The defendant’s palm and fingerprints were found at the scene.

These had been left in the deceased’s own blood.

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Married Mr Ibrahim, 25, had been living at Ismail’s flat since the start of last year after splitting from his wife.

Following the brutal killing, Ismail fled to Reading where he tried to get a bed at the Salvation Army, the court heard.

They referred him to hostels in Oxford, where he stayed at a homeless shelter before The Bridge Project put him up for two nights, the jury was told.

Ismail, known to pals as ‘Kadar’, then travelled back to Reading where he stayed at the town’s YMCA using his brother’s name, Abdi.

He was arrested on September 1, and made no comment when interviewed.

Although there was no apparent motive for the slaughter, the jury had heard how a few weeks before the attack Ismail turned up at his local housing office looking ‘nervous, anxious and agitated’.

He told staff he was shut out of his flat and demanded that the locks be changed, but he eventually left.

Mr Pegden added: ‘It may be that those events have no relevance to this case.

‘But the Crown says that everything points to the fact that this defendant killed his flat-mate before fleeing to Reading.

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ends