Shoreditch nightclub stabbing: Man guilty of murder
A fugitive who went on the run after killing a man outside a north London club has been found guilty of murder.
Tyla Gopaul, 22, stabbed 26-year-old Zakaria Abukar Shariff Ali outside the Rolling Stock nightclub in Shoreditch in the early hours of 24 November 2018. The jury heard Mr Ali was acting as a "peacemaker" in a dispute between two other men when he was attacked. Gopaul, from Islington, had admitted manslaughter but was found guilty of murder after a trial at the Old Bailey. The court heard that a verbal exchange had taken place inside the club between two men - Lee Haydon and Mohamad Ahmed, known as Hamza. They went out on to Waterson Street to settle the dispute where Mr Ali had intervened and acted as a "peacemaker". Prosecutor Anthony Orchard QC said the pair had "calmed" but Gopaul then "ran round the corner" shouting and "plunged" a knife into the 26-year-old's stomach. Mr Ali was taken to hospital but died later that day. 'Fell on the knife' Gopaul was seen on CCTV running away from the venue and fled the country within 24 hours, the jury was told. He was extradited from Cyprus in November 2019. Giving evidence, Gopaul said he had gone "to make sure there wasn't a fight and... to calm everyone down". He then pulled out a lock-knife to scare Hamza but he was knocked towards Mr Ali who had "fallen on the knife", the defendant claimed. He will be sentenced on Thursday along with another man, Destiny Bannerman, 20, from Ilford, who previously pleaded guilty to assisting an offender.