Disabled refugee killed

| Friday, 18 February 2005 Source: This is South Wales

Lee Mordecai killed a disabled refugee simply because he didn't like the way the man spoke to a group of girls. The 27-year-old was today starting five years behind bars for the manslaughter of Kurdish asylum seeker Kalan Karim in Swansea last September.

Mr Karim, who had come to Swansea to escape torture and persecution in his home land, died after being struck a single blow by 27-year-old Mordecai in a late-night racially motivated incident in The Kingsway.

As Mr Karim and a Kurdish friend laughed and joked with a group of local girls, 6ft tall Mordecai made racist remarks before delivering a blow leading to his death.

He struck out because he objected to the refugee speaking to city girls.

Swansea Crown Court judge Mr Justice Roderick Evans said Mr Karim had escaped the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and come for refuge to Wales. He added: "He had been tortured and lost part of his left leg. When he came to Wales he lost his life. "It was a wholly cowardly blow and it was wholly unprovoked.

"You picked on Mr Karim because he was of a different racial background to yourself.

"Swansea has a small ethnic community. It would not be right to say it has no racial problems or no racially motivated crime.

"But it does not have the major problems that some cities in England and Wales have and should not allow itself to get into that position where problems exist and flourish.

"The court will do whatever it can to ensure racially motivated crimes will not be tolerated and the people who commit such crimes will be severely dealt with."

The judge added: "His death is another example of how a comparatively minor incident can have devastating and fatal consequences.

"It is another example of the bad behaviour which seems to occur so frequently in The Kingsway and it's why family and friends of people who go out there for the night worry about them."

Mordecai, a 27-year-old panel beater who formerly lived in Bonymaen, had originally been charged with murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Prosecutor Paul Thomas said Mr Karim, aged 28, had come to Swansea in 2003 and had lived in Griffith John Street.

On the night of September 5 he had met up with Kurdish friends and went with one of them for a pizza at 1.30am. The two of them had been talking to three local girls, laughing at the girls' attempts to teach them Welsh words.

Mr Thomas said Mordecai took exception to them talking to the girls and told them to return to their own country.

He said to them: "I'll show you how to treat a Welsh girl."

He hit Mr Karim a single blow to the neck with his palm or wrist.

"What is clear is that this blow was cowardly and it gave Mr Karim no warning or chance to defend himself," said the prosecutor.

"It was wholly unprovoked and unjustified and it was racially motivated."

The court heard that Mordecai had three previous convictions involving public order offences, two of which were committed in The Kingsway area.

Taha Idris, director of the Swansea Bay Racial Equality Council, today welcomed the sentence, adding: "It gives a clear message that racism will not be tolerated, not just in society but by the judiciary."

Senior Crown Prosecutor Christine Jones who worked on the case added today: "Sadly, Mr Karim died simply because somebody objected to the way he spoke.

"Prosecuting this manslaughter firmly and robustly demonstrates how the Crown Prosecution Service will not tolerate hate crime.

"It was a callous and cowardly attack on an innocent victim who had fled from Iraq to avoid persecution."