THE HEAD ON THE BUS

An illegal immigrant decapitated a neighbour and took a bus trip with his head in a bag..

Algerian Mohamed Boudjenane, 45, was still claiming dole when he should have been thrown out of the country seven years ago.

He raped a Phillipino nanny, shaved off her hair and accused her of having an affair with his neighbour Lakhdar Ouyahia, 43.

He murdered Mr Ouyahia and cut his head off.

Boudjenane was captured on CCTV carrying the head of Mr Ouyahia in a plastic bag on a bus to the Regents Canal in Maida Vale, west London.

Two days later the headless corpse was discovered wrapped in a duvet at the back of a supermarket near his home in Kilburn, nw London.

Boudjenane showed police where he had thrown the head in a canal and police divers recovered it from the water.

But he claimed he had no memory of hitting Mr Ouyahia with a hammer and hacking off his head with a meat cleaver.

Boudjenane was convicted of murder, two counts of rape and false imprisonment by an Old Bailey jury.

The court heard he met the victim at a party a few months before.

She ran into him outside a newsagents in Kilburn, northwest London, and reluctantly agreed to go to his flat.

He double locked the front door, tied her up with shoelaces and shaved off her hair, raping her twice.

Wearing a long black wig, the mother-of-four told jurors: ‘He kept shouting at me to take off my clothes.

‘Because I was scared I took off my clothes. I was naked.

‘He took off his as well.

‘I said to him I will do what ever you want me to but don’t kill me.’

Prosecutor William Boyce said: ”She was very fortunate to escape with her life.’

Boudjenane told her: ‘You need to drink, it’s your last day today,’ and threatened to kill her by putting her in a tub of boiling water.

He also accused her of being a prostitute and having sex with ‘the man upstairs’ – Mr Ouyahia.

But he let her go the next day after she repeatedly promised to become a Muslim to marry him.

She then returned to work as a nanny in Oxford while Boudjenane plotted the killing of Mr Ouyahia hours later.

CCTV shows he went to Sainsbury’s supermarket at around 8pm to buy bleach, Dettol and a mop.

He was next seen boarding a bus carrying a ‘head-shaped’ bag on February 5.

The victim’s headless body was discovered by a member of the public at the back of Somerfield’s supermarket in Kingsgate Place on February 6 this year.

Boudjenane fled to Alvaston in Derby to stay with a girlfriend but was arrested on February 7.

He claimed he had been in a relationship and had seen her having sex with Mr Ouyahia

‘I used a ladder and climbed it and saw them,’ said Boudjenane.

‘I just ran away from the flat and tried to cool myself down. I was very angry.’

A week after seeing the two ‘making love’ he saw the woman outside his home and said he bundled her into the flat.

‘I tied her and told her to tell me the truth about the man upstairs,’ he said.

‘At any stage did you have knife?’ asked Mr Pownall.

‘Yes, one. It’s not big, it was small. I tried to scare her to tell me the truth.’

He agreed he shaved her head but said they had sex and added: ‘It was normal and she was happy with that.’

Boudjenane said he became depressed because of Islam religion and began to hear voices.

He admitted he had killed Mr Ouyahia but claimed he could not remember anything about the attack or his movements up until his arrest.

His barrister Orlando Pownall QC asked him: ‘Do you accept that you must have taken the head of Mr Ouyahia on the bus and threw it into the canal?’

He replied: ‘No.’

Mr Pownall asked: ‘Who else could it have been if it wasn’t you?’

Boudjenane said: ‘I can’t remember.’

Mr Pownall: ‘Did you use that cleaver to cut his head off?’

Boudjenane: ‘I don’t know.’

He admitted he is a failed asylum seeker who remained in the country claiming benefits for more than six years after his appeal was turned down.

Boudjenane arrived in Britain in 1996 using a fake French ID card bought in Spain but only applied for political asylum in 1998.

Boudjenane, of (24) Kingsgate Road, Kilburn, denied murder, two counts of rape and false imprisonment.

He admitted the killing but denied murder on the basis of diminished responsibility.

Judge Christopher Moss QC jailed the Algerian for life, with a minimum term of 22 years.

He told him: ‘Throughout the afternoon and evening of February 3 this year, you brutalised your victim, having taken her from the street, where she was going about her business.

‘You imprisoned her in your house, which you admitted, and you raped her three times.

‘You achieved her submission by striking her about the face and head until she was black and blue, you threatened her with death and if that were not enough, you further punished her by cutting off all her hair.

‘You did so, as I am satisfied, because you were obsessed with her, and wished to have the relationship with her which she had made it perfectly clear she rejected.

‘Thereafter, you murdered the man who you wrongly perceived to be your rival by striking him in the head with a heavy implement, probably a hammer.

‘I have no doubt on the evidence that you intended to kill him.

‘Thereafter, you insulted his dead body by mutilation.

‘You decapitated his body and tried to dismember him.

‘You disposed of the head and body in an attempt as I find to avoid capture.

‘You are, it seems to me, a very dangerous individual.’

Boudjenane claimed asylum in the UK in 1998 on the grounds his business partner had been approached by terrorists.

It was rejected after he was unable to provide proof and the appeal was also rejected.

He then had a series of jobs including as a handyman at a golf club until 2002 when he started claiming sickness and incapacity benefits.

Boudjenane had gone to his GP complaining he had suffered depression for the previous three years.

He was prescribed drugs and referred to the local psychiatric team in Paddington but they decided he was not suffering from symptoms of depression.

In April 2003 he filled out a disabled person’s freedom pass claiming he was under the Mental Health Act (MHA) with depression and a personality disorder for ten years.

Jurors heard there was no evidence he has ever been under the MHA.

In August 2005 he was seen by a psychiatrist at the Royal Free Hospital.

Boudjenane complained of having suicidal thoughts and hearing strange voices – although he didn’t know what language they were speaking in.

The psychiatrist decided he did not have any psychiatric illness but he was seen at an outpatients’ clinic over the next year.

It was recorded that his mood was improving after being prescribed a tranquilliser and anti-psychotic drug throughout 2006.