Mohammed Al Aaraj, a Syrian ‘refugee’, was sentenced to 4 years in a Young Offender’s Institution after killing an 86-year-old veteran, despite the fact that he is old enough to be placed in adult prison and was at the time the crime was committed.
Al Aaraj, 19, who was in the United Kingdom as a refugee, attacked Frank Fishwick in Preston, Lancashire, last September, after Fishwick told Al Aaraj and his group of friends to move off after he caught them smoking cannabis outside his house.
The group of youths taunted and insulted Fishwick, who proceeded to use “racist” language.
This infuriated Al Aaraj, who punched Fishwick in the face. He died of his injuries the next day in hospital.
After initially claiming to police that Fishwick had kicked him and threatened him with a knife, the Syrian refugee pleaded guilty in December, and was sentenced in Preston Crown Court last week.
However, Judge Robert Altham decided not to send Al Aaraj to adult prison, but instead to a Young Offender’s Institution, a far more relaxed system usually reserved for people under 18.
He will only serve 2 years of his 4 year sentence before being released on licence.
According to the most recent statistics, only 82 out of 632 (13%) of those in Young Offender’s Institutions in the UK are between the ages of 18 and 21.
With 3,391 people between age 18 and 20 held in the entire prison system as of December 31 2021, this means that only around 2% of offenders of Al Aaraj’s age group are sent to the cushier alternative to full prison.
During the sentencing hearing, Chris Hudson for the defence appealed to the fact that Al Aaraj came to the UK as a Syrian refugee at age 15.
Hudson claimed Araj was “treated like a slave” and had allegedly seen his sister shot in front of him.
Hudson said that he had “experienced racism” in the UK, with a doctor saying he had diagnosed him with PTSD in prison, of which “racism” was a trigger, claiming that he had been subject to even more racism while being held in prison. “A young man with the background this young man has might react quickly,” Hudson argued, who went on to describe Al Aaraj as “intrinsically decent.”
Both Detective Chief Inspector Mark Haworth-Oates of Lancashire Police, and Paul Robinson of the Crown Prosecution Service, also made sure to explicitly condemn the “unacceptable” and “inappropriate” language used by Fishwick in their statements, although no news reports have confirmed what exact language was used.
Judith Fishwick, the daughter of the victim, told the court her father was “taken in an inhuman and cruel act of violence,” and that her sense of loss was compounded by the fact that she lives in America and hadn’t been able to see him since the start of covid lockdowns, adding that she wasn’t sure if she would ever feel peaceful again.
