Horrified parents reveal how ‘creepy’ killer Afghan asylum seeker chatted up teenage girls at his secondary school while posing as a 14-year-old boy when he was really 19
Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai posed as a young Afghan orphan after arriving in Britain in 2019 and was allowed to study at Winton Academy in Bournemouth.
But in reality, he was a 19-year-old man who was wanted by police in Serbia after being sentenced in his absence to 20 years’ imprisonment for shooting two people dead in an apparent argument over people smuggling. His web of deception – which fooled Border Force and Home Office officials – was made public this week when Abdulrahimzai was convicted of stabbing aspiring marine Thomas Roberts to death in Bournemouth town centre last March.
The Afghani, now 21, was given a foster mother shortly after arriving in the UK – claiming that the Taliban had executed both his parents. He subsequently enrolled at Winton Academy, but angry parents of his classmates have now described their horror that he was allowed to mix freely with their children – despite being a cold-blooded killer.
A … mother, who asked not to be named, described the murderer as ‘the school bully’. She said: ‘He was known as Lo because his name was long and complicated to remember. He was a school bully. Obviously, he was much bigger and stronger than his classmates and more manipulative. A lot of the pupils were scared of him . . . he was brazenly chatting up 14-year-old girls at lunchtime. He would come over and sit with them, it was really creepy. He asked a few girls out even though they were under age.
I appreciate that the school may not have known at the time that he was really an adult nor that he’d killed two men in Serbia. But as soon as they were made aware, they should have messaged all the parents to apologise and explain how this man was able to pose as a 14-year-old boy.”
Abdulrahimzai had been handed a 20-year prison sentence in his absence after the killings in Serbia. But he fled to the UK — where he became a street fighter who attacked his foster mother and boasted about his love of knives on TikTok.
Officials were unaware of Abdulrahimzai’s previous convictions — carried out under the alias ‘Huan Yasin’ — until police started investigating Mr Roberts’ murder. They discovered that two people in Serbia had been shot dead by a petrol station, with Abdulrahimzai identified by witnesses as the killer. He had also been convicted of drug dealing in Italy and was given a non-custodial sentence after pleading guilty.
But Abdulrahimzai was allowed into the UK after deceiving Border Force, the Home Office and officials at Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council.
He had fooled them so comprehensively that he was placed with foster mother Nicola Marchant-Jones. When he nearly headbutted Ms Marchant-Jones during an argument, he was removed from her care.
Abdulrahimzai was sentenced for murder at Crown Court Salisbury earlier today
Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai will have to serve a minimum of 29 years in prison for stabbing Thomas Roberts to death during a row over an E-scooter in Bournemouth, Dorset, in the early hours of March 12 2022.