Latest news with #Abdulmalik
Daily Mirror
07-07-2025
- Daily Mirror
Dad who smashed M&S warehouse colleague 31 times with barbell learns his fate
Abdulsalam Hassan, 27, lay in wait for his colleague at a junction in Derby before savagely attacking him with a 3lb dumbbell, destroying his skull A warehouse worker has been jailed for 28 years after battering his "kind and honourable" colleague with a 3lb dumbbell in a "callous" revenge attack. Abdulsalam Hassan, 27, carried out a "ferocious and sustained" attack on "defenceless" Abdulmalik Aman, with whom he worked at a Marks & Spencer warehouse, a judge told him. Laying in wait for his colleague, Hassan launched a vicious attack on Mr Aman at a busy junction in Derby, bludgeoning him 31 times with the piece of gym equipment. The attack was so violent that Mr Aman lost half his skull. At Derby Crown Court earlier this year, it took a jury just three hours to unanimously convict him for attempted murder. Judge Jonathan Bennett said: 'This was a ferocious and sustained attack on Mr Aman. You had seen him in the Aldi near your house, you went into your address, picked up a weapon and then waited outside with the barbell knowing he would walk past your address. "You assaulted him relentlessly. The CCTV is disturbing to watch. He was defenceless. There was one final blow where you lifted his head from the gutter, hit him again, left him there and calmly went into your flat and changed your clothing. "The life-threatening injuries he sustained have changed his life forever. He feels he now has little to live for, he will never be the same handsome young man he once was again. "The irony is that Mr Aman came to this country, as no doubt you did, to flee war-torn Ethiopia seeking safety. This was a callous attack. You were determined to seek revenge and you took the law into your own hands." Prosecutor Mary Prior KC, when she opened the trial, said the attack happened at around 7.20pm on October 2 last year. She said Mr Aman was carrying shopping past the defendant's Burton Road flat when he was assaulted from behind by him. The prosecutor said: 'He had armed himself with a weapon and he lay in wait. 'Abdulmalik walked past without noticing the defendant who ran up to him from behind and hit him hard to the head with the metal bar. He fell to the floor and he dropped the shopping, putting up no resistance. 'The defendant raised the bar above his head and hit Abdulmalik with it another 12 times, each time the defendant raised the bar above his head to gain maximum impact . Before the last four blows, he moved Abdulmalik's body to strike another part of the head. 'Plainly, Abdulmalik was unconscious and at this stage. He was intending to kill him. He stood up and hit Abdulmalik hard twice to the body.' Mrs Prior told the jury that the men - both Ethiopian - worked together at the same Marks & Spencer warehouse on the same night shift and that months before the defendant had allegedly been assaulted by the victim and a second man, reports DerbyshireLive. She said that saw him suffer two broken teeth and a fracture to his nose and the matter was reported to the police. But due to the fact that there is only one interpreter for Hassan's language, the investigation was dragging on, which annoyed and upset the defendant. The prosecutor said: 'At no stage did he appear relieved that Abdulmalik lived or expressed his sorrow or remorse. His view was and remains that Abdulmalik deserved what he got. "There was no sign of shock or any kind of remorse. The defendant had done what he set out to do. He had, he thought, killed Abdulmalik.' Mrs Prior said the victim was taken to emergency surgery and part of his skull was removed to allow the brain to swell. She said the bleeding inside the skull was removed but the bruising to the brain was of such a severity that the surface of it had broken down. The prosecutor said: 'He was placed in intensive care, sedated and ventilated. It was not known whether he would live or die. By some miracle, Abdulmalik survived his injuries. 'He has been left with a severe brain injury and right-sided paralysis, and on November 26, 2024, he was discharged from intensive care to a rehabilitation unit but requires significant assistance with daily life to live outside of the hospital. 'Abdulmalik had no memory of the day of the incident. Half of his skull remains missing and he is obliged to wear a protective helmet.' Caroline Wright from the charity Headway Derby, which supported Mr Aman following his brain injury, provided a victim impact statement on his behalf. In it, he said he remains in constant pain and only has two teeth, which are not fractured, meaning he is 'only able to tolerate liquid food'. He said: 'I suffer constant headaches which make me physically sick and I'm in significant facial pain because of the fractures to my face. All of my difficulties make me entirely socially isolated and I am housebound because of my social anxiety and risk of falling. I am under a speech and language therapist and I am unable to leave the house without a support worker.' Mrs Prior said: 'He also suffered the additional shame which saw him medically dismissed from Marks & Spencer. Mrs Wright says he is kind and honourable, wanted to marry, have a family, and the attempted murder of him has totally ruined his life, living a lonely existence in constant pain, lying awake at night in constant fear of being attacked again.' Josh Radcliffe, mitigating, said his client has no previous convictions of any kind and that the defendant's wife had recently given birth. He said: 'The excessively serious nature of this case and the damage done has not escaped him. There was a history of conflict between Mr Hassan and Mr Aman in which he (the defendant) suffered an unpleasant assault which left him unconscious and with broken teeth.' The sentence is made up of 28 years custody plus a four-year extended licence. It means he will not be eligible to apply for parole until two-thirds of the way through the custodial element.
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘We don't want to stay here': UN accused of abandoning refugees in Niger
There is no shade from the sun nor protection from sandstorms in the deserts of Niger and so, for almost 300 days, the refugees stranded there have stood in protest with a single message: 'We don't want to stay here.' About 15km (8 miles) from the nearest town of Agadez, the 2,000 refugees in the camp feel they have been isolated from the world, kept out of sight and earshot and abandoned by those they feel should be helping them – the Nigerien government, the EU and the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR. Many of the refugees have fled conflict in Sudan, but found their attempts to reach safety in Europe thwarted after being pushed back by north African countries paid by the EU to prevent people crossing the Mediterranean. Fearful, and reluctant to return to their home countries, they have become stranded in Niger. While UNHCR says it does everything it can with the resources it has, the agency has become the focus for refugee frustrations in the camp, where they have little access to medical care or education. From July, they will no longer receive food aid. 'UNHCR's role is very weak and they treat us without much humanity; they have little role in protecting us, which makes us vulnerable,' says Abdulmalik, a Sudanese man who says he has been in the camp for more than seven years. Abdulmalik says there is no access to healthcare and that Nigerien authorities are heavy handed, beating and imprisoning refugees whenever they raise complaints. He himself was imprisoned in 2020 after a protest during which a large part of the Agadez centre burned down. 'We live in a desert, 15km from the city without the most basic necessities of life. This is our suffering,' says Yousef Ismail, another Sudanese refugee who is part of the protests. 'Food was cut off [by UNHCR, at the request of the government] from us in February as punishment. A widowed woman was beaten just because she demanded her rights. In the same month, four refugees died due to the lack of a health centre,' says Ismail. UNHCR has announced that because of funding shortfalls, from next month it will only provide food aid to the most vulnerable refugees in Agadez. Sign up to Global Dispatch Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team after newsletter promotion A UNHCR official who works in the region, who refused to be named, said they understand the frustrations, but that funding cuts and restrictions from the governments they work with limit the options. They said resettlements happen on an individual basis but the process is slowed because third countries, such as those in Europe, offer very limited numbers of spaces for refugees. Moctar Dan Yaye, from Nigerien NGO Alarme Phone Sahara team, says he understands why the refugees are so frustrated with UNHCR and want to be relocated to safer countries. 'It's normal for people being kept for years, who are not being integrated, to become frustrated and lose patience. UNHCR should use this and push others to help them,' he says. Marc Montany, an activist who supported a refugee protest group in Libya, says UNHCR can often take a patronising approach to refugees and not take their concerns seriously. 'There's a sense of disregard, really not treating them with the sensitivity required for people fleeing war and probably subjected to crimes against humanity,' he says. Jeff Crisp, a former senior UNHCR official, says the agency finds it difficult to respond to discontent. 'It has a tendency to resent what is perceived to be the ingratitude of people that it is trying to help. Some of its staff are quick to label refugee protesters as 'troublemakers'.' Even while the refugees in Niger have been protesting, more have arrived with reports of people being rounded up and deported from north Africa. Alarme Phone Sahara estimated that in April more than 2,000 people were pushed back to Niger from Algeria and almost 800 from Libya. It previously estimated 31,000 were pushed back from Algeria in 2024. 'It's unacceptable seeing people left in the desert. I can see it happen but can't stop it. This is the unfairness of the EU policies – they say they care about human rights but then create these problems,' says Yaye.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Student wins international award for AI injury prediction platform
A student has won an international award for creating an AI platform that predicts injuries in elite athletes. Abdulmalik Alshamari, a first-year software engineering student at the University of Brighton, developed Champions Hub, a web-based platform that uses open-access player data and a custom-built algorithm to predict injury risks with more than 80 per cent accuracy. Advertisement The system analyses nine key metrics, including fatigue, workload, recovery, and training load, to detect early warning signs of injury. Even in its development phase, the platform has shown remarkable predictive power. Abdulmalik's Champions Hub correctly predicted Gabriel Jesus injury in January (Image: University of Brighton) It correctly forecast a 71 per cent injury risk for Arsenal's Gabriel Jesus just eight days before his season-ending injury in January. It also accurately predicted injuries for Real Madrid defenders Dani Carvajal and Éder Militão just four days before they occurred. Over the past four seasons, clubs in Europe's top five football leagues have suffered more than 14,000 injuries, costing an estimated €2.3 billion. Advertisement Champions Hub aims to reduce these losses by helping teams proactively manage player health. Abdulmalik's innovation recently won second place for sustainability at the prestigious AI League, a global sports tech challenge featuring more than 1,800 participants from 20 countries and more than 600 advanced submissions. Abdulmalik, who moved from Saudi Arabia to Brighton to study his degree, was awarded 100,000 SAR (approximately £21,000) to further develop the platform. He said: "This platform isn't just about technology—it's about protecting athletes, saving clubs money, and using AI for good. Advertisement "Since arriving in Brighton, I've felt empowered not just as a student, but as a solution builder. "The support and environment here have helped me turn an idea into a global solution." Jennie Harding, senior lecturer and course leader of software engineering at the University of Brighton, praised Abdulmalik's achievement. She said: "These are the kind of practical, real-world problems that we love to see students thinking about and helping to solve. "At Brighton, we are proud to develop students who will tackle global challenges through technology. "What Abdulmalik has achieved in just his first year in the university is nothing short of remarkable and we're excited to see what he does next." Abdulmalik hopes to pilot his platform with professional teams in Europe and across the world, especially in the Middle East where he's from.
