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Five guilty of killing Kodjo, 16, in street
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent08.04.08
Five teenagers were convicted today of killing a young college student in the street as their girlfriends chanted "Kill him, kill him".
A 14-year-old and a 16-year-old were found guilty of murder. The other three, aged 14, 15 and 17, were convicted of manslaughter at the Old Bailey.
Kodjo Yenga, 16, was beaten to the ground and stabbed by a mob armed with knives, hammers, baseball bats and a pit bull dog. The killing in Hammersmith was the fifth gang-related murder of a teenager in London in just five weeks over February and March last year.
Kodjo, who was studying for four AS-levels at St Charles Catholic Sixth Form College, North Kensington, died in hospital a few hours after the daylight attack.
He was ambushed by more than a dozen youths after being challenged to a oneonone fight by a gang member as he walked home from shopping with his girlfriend in Hammersmith Broadway.
The fatal blows were struck after he was surrounded and told one of the mob: "Do you think you are a big boy because you've got a knife?" The court heard Kodjo's girlfriend, who cannot be named for legal reasons, tell how she cradled his head in her arms in the street and pleaded with him not to die.
"I ran straight up to Kizzle. He was holding his heart," she told police in a taped interview. "Blood was coming out of his mouth. I rocked him. I placed my hand on his heart. He's moaning, making noises. I didn't know he was stabbed in the heart at the time."
The teenagers, who had all denied murder, will be sentenced later by Judge Christopher Moss.
They were all said to be members of MDP, which stands for either Murder Dem Pussies or Money Drugs Power, and is said to have 100 members. Active in west London, the gang threatens other teenagers with extreme violence.
Reader views (3)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
Just too shocked for words. Juveniles are becoming animals more and more. Who do you look too stop such incidents and whom do you hold responsible? Is there no value to for life! So easy taken away!
- Nita, London
If they all get anything but life terms it will send a green light to other gang members. Lock them up and throw away the key.
- Teddy, Islington, London
Let's hope they get a lot more than the 4 years handed out to the killers of Evren Anil (he died in a fight with two knife-carrying teenagers who had thrown a chocolate bar into his car).
- Austen, London
