The moment a Saudi student was stabbed to death in a Cambridge street has been shown to jurors.
CCTV footage shows Mohammed Algasim, 20, sitting on a low wall outside student accommodation near Cambridge’s train station before he was stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife on the evening of August 1 last year.
Chas Corrigan, 22, denies his murder and is on trial at Cambridge Crown Court. He is seen in the footage wearing a hi-vis jacket and walking towards Mr Algasim, who is with friends.
Nicholas Hearn, prosecuting, had previously told the court the two young men had never met before.
He said the incident was “captured by a high-quality CCTV camera positioned outside the student accommodation”.
In the footage, Mr Algasim and Mr Corrigan appear to speak before the latter walks away towards the station. Mr Corrigan then returns, leans over and produces a knife, before Mr Algasim is stabbed in the neck. Mr Algasim is then seen running away.
The encounter was played to jurors in court but the moment the student was stabbed was edited out of footage released by Cambridgeshire Police on Wednesday.
Mr Hearn told the court that a fellow student of Mr Algasim, Abdullah Bin Shuail, had given an account of what happened.
Mr Bin Shuail said he heard Mr Corrigan say something to Mr Algasim when Mr Corrigan first approached, but could not hear what this was or whether Mr Algasim replied.
Mr Corrigan walked away and Mr Bin Shuail said he heard Mr Algasim say something to the defendant but “could only make out one word, ‘centre’”, Mr Hearn said, opening the prosecution case.
“When Mr Algasim said this the defendant turned and started to come back towards them,” Mr Hearn said.
The prosecutor said the defendant said: “What did you say, what did you say?” and this was “in a very angry and aggressive way”.
He said Mr Bin Shuail “saw the defendant punch Mr Algasim hard to the left side of his neck” and “then saw that the defendant was holding a large knife in his right hand”.
Mr Algasim died of a single stab wound which cut across the carotid artery and jugular vein, “causing massive bleeding”, Mr Hearn said.
Jane Osborne KC, opening the defence case, said Mr Corrigan “had a kitchen knife … tucked into his waistband rather than in the pocket”.
“He will tell you he had no intention of using that knife,” she said. “He had it with him so if he was attacked, as he had been in the past, he could frighten off any attacker.
“He wanted to prevent himself being a victim of violence again.”
She said Mr Corrigan will say “in the incident Mr Algasim was standing in front of him. He thought Mr Algasim was acting aggressively”.
“He thought he [Corrigan] was imminently going to be attacked so he produced the knife,” she said.
“Having produced the knife Mr Corrigan had no intention of using it to cause Mr Algasim any harm. He intended to wave it between them.
“He will say he had no idea he had made contact with Mr Algasim with the knife.”
The trial, estimated to last around two weeks, continues.
