“Everyone gets stabbed, everyone gets shot. Everyone dies, everyone goes to jail, that’s how life is.”
That was the chilling statement made by Nathaniel Okusanya, 19 who along with his friend, Nelson Idiabeta, 18, killed Kwame Ofosu-Asare, an innocent 17-year-old student in March this year after mistaking him for a rival gang member.
At the time of the murder, Okusanya was 18 while Idiabeta was 17.
Kwame just happened to be “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and was stabbed 14 times in the back in a ‘cowardly and merciless’ murder by the two young men.
According to Daily Mail, the pair were members of the TN1 gang – Trust No One – out to avenge one of their member who was stabbed by a rival gang member from the GAS gang – Guns and Shanks – just hours earlier. They had toured housing estates in Brixton to find rival gang members and came upon 17-year-old Kwame and his friend, who had nothing to do with any gangs. He was a sixth-form student who moved to London from Ghana in 2002.
Kwame, a business student, promising footballer, a budding actor and rapper, was walking back with a friend from a session at a recording studio when they were confronted by Okusanya and Idiabeta in the Moorlands Estate in Brixton. Hours before his horrendous death he had gone to the studio to record a track which he dedicated to his mother. Kwame and his friend with a ‘sixth sense’ ran away into a cul de sac where his friend’s aunt lived in a desperate attempt to get to safety – but she was not at home. His friend managed to jump over a wall but Kwame was trapped and then killed. He was violently attacked suffering 14 stab wounds, three of which penetrated his lungs and one his liver.
He shouted out he was from Catford and pleaded “I’m not from round here, I’m not from round here but he was murdered by the pair who were out to avenge their friend, Stewart who was stabbed on the top deck of a bus in West Norwood.
When police searched Okusanya’s home, they found photos of three other murder victims – Abukar Mahamood, who was shot dead aged 16 in 2007; Sadiq Adebeyi, 25, who was shot dead in May 2011; and Nana Darko-Frimpong, 16, who was shot dead in June 2011.Okusanya told police they were all his friends and added:
“Stabbings happen everywhere… it’s how life is now. Everyone gets stabbed, everyone gets shot. Everyone dies, everyone goes to jail, that’s how life is. In a typical black area, people get stabbed, people get shot, people die.”
After an Old Bailey jury found the pair guilty, they were jailed for life. Idiabeta was jailed for life with a minimum recommendation of 19 years while Okusanya was jailed for life with a minimum recommendation of 20 years.
