Crime and Justice
April 12, 2014
A man who strangled a deaf man with limited speech has been sentenced at the Old Bailey today, Wednesday 9 April, to life imprisonment for murder.
Soufiale Essabri, 23, (20.09.1990) an unemployed French national of Rathmore Road, SE7 was found guilty of the murder of 30-year-old Andrejs Ivanovs in Frederick Road, SE17 on Sunday, 9 December 2012.
He will serve a minimum term of 18 years.
The sentencing follows an investigation by the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Major Crime Command (HMCC).
Detective Inspector David Reid of HMCC said: “I hope this verdict will provide some measure of consolation to the family of Andrejs Ivanovs.”
The court heard that on Sunday, 9 December 2012 police were called at around 22:35hrs following concerns for the occupant of a flat in Frederick Road, SE17 after there were sounds of a disturbance.
As officers attended the venue they were alerted to a suspect in the gardens at the rear, presumed to have jumped from a first floor window. Despite some officers pursuing the suspect he escaped.
Other officers forced entry to the flat and found the occupant suffering multiple stab wounds and with the flex of an iron wrapped around his neck. The ambulance service attended but the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
He was later identified as Andrejs Ivanovs, 30 (25.12.81) a Latvian national who lived in the flat. He was a deaf man who did not speak. He worked at a McDonalds on Walworth Road.
A post-mortem examination gave cause of death as asphyxia (compression to the neck).
Searches of the route taken by the escaped suspect recovered an iPod box with a bloody fingerprint on it. A further bloody fingerprint was found on a cupboard door in Mr. Ivanov’s flat. These fingerprints identified Essabri.
On 11 December 2012 detectives attended Essabri’s address in Rathmore Road, SE7 (where he rented a room) and he was arrested on suspicion of Mr. Ivanov’s murder.
Essabri was charged the day after his arrest on 12 December 2012.