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Phantom mask killer is sent to mental hospital
Justin Davenport, Crime Correspondent03.03.09
A JEALOUS killer who stabbed a college receptionist 65 times while wearing a "Phantom of the Opera" mask was locked up indefinitely today.
Rafi Ullah, 29, was sent to a mental hospital after admitting the manslaughter of 23-year-old Sehrish Waqar Sheikh at a college in Plaistow.
He became obsessed with Miss Sheikh while working at a minicab firm with her. When he heard she was to marry someone else he decided to end her life and commit suicide.
Ullah travelled to the college on a bus while dressed in a long black wig and grey executioner's mask he had bought in a fancy-dress shop.
Witnesses described the mask disguise as looking "like the Phantom of the Opera". He arrived at St George's International College, a language and business school, on 22 September last year.
First he stabbed administrator Kiran Asgha, 22, in the shoulder and then launched the ferocious attack on Miss Sheikh. He tried to cut his own throat as he grappled with two unarmed police officers.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson told the Old Bailey: "There was very little contact between Rafi Ullah and Sehrish Sheikh but if anything she was kinder towards him than others in the office.
"It was that kindness which had such terrible consequences."
Ullah, of Wembley, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and admitted wounding Miss Asgha.
Miss Sheikh's brother, Yasir, said in a written statement that the "cold-blooded execution" had thrown his "average, hard-working family" into a nightmare.
Reader views (2)
Steve from London, would love to have seen what u wrote, if you lost your loved one! Yasir was talking about him and his family not about the whole world!
- Smith, London
Just because you're fromm a 'hard working family' doesn't make you a nicer person or whiter than white.
- Steve, London
