Migrant stabs student, 18, for wanting to be deported from the UK

This is the moment an Iraqi immigrant stabbed a university student so he could be deported home.

Ellis Wheeler, 18, was fighting for his life after Rebaz Mohammed, 28, stabbed him while walking through Hoglands Park in Southampton last December.

Horrifying footage shows Mohammed pulling a kitchen knife from his coat before stabbing it in the teen’s back and puncturing his lung in front of horrified onlookers.

Mr Wheeler managed to dodge more punches and run away, but passed out before he could get medical attention.

Luckily, a “heroic” friend was there, who called 999 and put pressure on his wound until the police arrived.

Mohammed was arrested at the scene and told officers he launched the attack because he wanted to be expelled from Britain.

Defense attorney Richard Tutt told Southampton Crown Court: “Muhammad believed from what he had been told that he had to commit an offense of a serious enough nature.

“He presents himself as a very naive person. He has experienced remorse, or at least sorrow.’

Mohammed, who originally came to the UK illegally on a small boat, was living in a hotel in Bournemouth, Dorset at the time.

He had neither work nor money and had “made every effort to be deported”.

He had previously been cautioned for criminal damage and assault and was serving a 12-week sentence in May 2022 for aggravated racial harassment and stalking.

Jurors were told Mr Wheeler, a first-year student at Solent University, remained under surveillance for five days after undergoing surgery for a collapsed lung.

He ended up missing his exams and still struggles to sleep as anxiety dogges him, prosecutors said.

Judge Brian Forster KC sentenced Mohammed, who admitted to intentional aggravated assault and possession of a knife, to six years in prison with an additional four-year sentence.

Judge Forster said directly to the defendant: “If someone attacks with a knife, then that’s coincidence.

“It was a random attack. Any member of our community could have been the victim.

“You were willing to inflict serious injury with a weapon to achieve your own goal. You could have killed the victim.”

The judge praised the victim’s friend, saying he “saved his life” and awarded him £250.

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