An orphaned Somalian refugee was tortured to death

An orphaned Somalian refugee was tortured to death by two countrymen because he was homosexual, the Old Bailey heard.

Anwar Ahmed, 21, was bound, beaten and strangled and his throat was hacked apart.

The body was left on his bloodstained bed to be found by a teenager who walked through the open door the following morning.

Detectives searching the flat found a mass of fingerprints linking Saad Farah, 23, and Hamsa Jama, 21, to the terrible murder.

They also found all three men had been caught on CCTV footage shot around the victim’s house in Portobello Road, Notting Hill.

Prosecutor Mr David Farrer, QC told the court: ‘There is some suggestion in the evidence that this arose from disapproval of Anwar Ahmed’s apparent homosexuality.

‘All those connected are members of the muslim faith.

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The QC added the motive could also be robbery and ‘an extreme form of bullying.

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Ahmed came to Britain eight years ago after he lost his parents in the Somalian civil war.

He was given a council flat at (375) Portobello Road near Ladbroke Grove tube station and had lived there for the last two years of his life.

Ahmed was mentally ill and was being treated at St Charles Hospital.

The two killers and a third man who has not been traced were known to him and Ahmed let them into his flat, said Mr Farrer.

‘They took part in a sustained attack on Ahmed which involved tying him up, blows a knife and finally strangulation.

‘These men arrived together at the flat stayed together’ left together and, say the prosecution in simple language, were in it from the start together.

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Neighbours heard ominous bangs and screams though the night of June 11 last year.

One went to complain and was told Ahmed and been drinking and there was no problem.

The noises stopped, but the body was found at 7am the following morning with its feet still tied together.

‘Mr Ahmed was strangled, partly with a flex which was wrapped around his neck and partly, so it seems with downwards pressure on his throat over a considerable area, sufficient to stop him breathing,’ said Mr Farrer.

Detectives found a knife at the flat and a bloodstained toilet roll which may have been used to press down on the victim’s neck as he was suffocated.

‘Before he was strangled he had been tied up hand and foot and repeatedly slashed with a knife in the throat and struck, in the face and head,’ the QC said.

‘Presumably because he was tied up and the way in which he was strangled suggests he was being tortured.

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The flat had been ransacked and the victim’s belongings strewn over the floor.

Farah of (53) Burgh Tower, Acton and and Jama of no fixed address deny murder.

The trial continues.

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