Two youths aged 14 and 17, along with two 18-year-olds, convicted of killing Jeremie Malenge despite jurors receiving apparent death threat in trial

A group of young people have been found guilty of hunting down and stabbing a 17-year-old boy to death despite jurors in their trial receiving an apparent death threat.



Two youths aged 14 and 17 along with Sanaa Ibrahim and Tre Morgan, both 18, were convicted of their part in killing Jeremie Malenge who was attacked in the street in Hackney, north-east London, in January.

The six-week Old Bailey trial was halted after jurors reported seeing someone in the public gallery making a throat-cutting gesture in their direction while Ibrahim was giving evidence in her defence. However, they agreed to carry on regardless and went on to find all four defendants guilty of murder after deliberating for less than two hours.

Ibrahim broke down in tears as the verdicts were delivered. All four were remanded in custody until sentencing on 25 September.

On the night of the killing, Ibrahim acted as the “inside woman” by flitting between the killers and their targets after travelling back from Swindon with Malenge and his 17-year-old friend. She also secretly texted and called her 17-year-old co-accused 36 times before the half-hour chase began, the court heard.

Malenge, his friend and Ibrahim had arrived at Hackney Central at 11pm on 6 January at the exact time the three other defendants were seen running towards the station. Over the next 30 minutes, the attackers hunted Malenge and his friend through the streets to carry out the knife attack.

Even as Malenge ran for his life, Ibrahim was caught on CCTV meeting the killers face-to-face to pass on information before rejoining Malenge and his friend, the court heard.

The killers caught up with the pair in Homerton High Street, where the “sudden, brutal and terrifying” attack on Malenge took place after his friend managed to get away, prosecutor Timothy Cray told the jury. He was stabbed multiple times and received a fatal 12.5cm wound through his ribs, piercing the heart. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

In his closing speech, Cray had told jurors: “Many central facts are agreed. It is also agreed that this was a vicious, unnecessary killing of a young man who did not deserve to be cut down on the streets of London. No excuse has been put forward for these actions and there can be no excuse.

“Instead the four defendants in their various ways either say ‘not me’ and then point the finger at each other or say that they were not there at all, despite the clearest evidence that they were.

“You also appreciate that we say those attempts to shift the blame, including the lies and tortured explanations that two defendants put before you from that witness box, are designed to deflect you from the truth – that all four of them acted together to carry out the knife attack that killed Jeremie Malenge.”

Although she was not present at the time of the stabbing, Ibrahim was sitting just yards away and was with the killers minutes before and after. In her defence, she said Malenge had been in Swindon to deal drugs that day and he had forced her to go with him back to Hackney to steal a stash of drugs from her home.

She named the three other defendants as she told jurors she saw them disposing of bloody knives into a canal after Malenge’s death. Ibrahim, of Hackney, the two youths, and Morgan, of south-west London, all denied murder.

The 17-year-old boy, who admitted manslaughter, was caught on CCTV carrying a large knife in his hand before the killing. He was also accused of being involved in an earlier knife attack in the same area on another young man on 22 March last year. He was found guilty of wounding with intent relating to the earlier incident.