Abdullah Qureshi, 29, was accused of attacking ultra-Orthodox in London’s Stamford Hill. Qureshi deliberately traveled from Yorkshire to London to carry out the attacks. At the London Magistrate’s Court it turned out that he was specifically looking for ultra-Orthodox Jews
A Muslim man traveled 250 kilometers from Yorkshire to North London to attack two ultra-Orthodox Christians and an ultra-Orthodox boy on their way to a synagogue, a London court heard.
Abdullah Qureshi, 29, of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, is accused of attacking the victims as they walked on Stamford Hill. Qureshi, who represented himself at the Magistrate’s Court, admitted that he attacked the two ultra-Orthodox victims but denied religious motives after being accused of traveling to the area to specifically attack “members of the Jewish community”.
One of his victims claimed that he was on a phone call when Qureshi hit him on the head with a bottle “because he was Jewish”. The attacker then continued his campaign of hate and beat an ultra-Orthodox boy on his way to school. His third victim, Yaakov Lifshitz, was slammed into a wall and severely beaten on the way to a synagogue, as it turned out in court.
The anti-Semitic Muslim attacker Abdullah Qureshi
The victim said that the attacker left him unconscious on the way to the synagogue and was left with four fractures, he added that he ‘cannot function normally’ after being punched in the face by Qureshi. The attacker was charged with one count of religiously aggravated wounding and grievous bodily harm, and two counts of common aggravated assault, when he appeared at East London Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
In a previous hearing, he admitted that he attacked the two ultra-Orthodox victims but denied any religious motives – he also did not admit that he attacked the boy. The defendant denied any hateful motive and said that he wondered if the injuries inflicted on the victims were as serious as written in the indictment.
The serious element in terms of assault on religious grounds of the charges was previously dropped by the prosecutors, but was later reinstated following an outcry from the Jewish community. Verinder Heyer, prosecuting, told the court: “The prosecution case is that on August 18, 2021, Mr Qureshi traveled all the way from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire to Stamford Hill because it is particularly associated with the Jewish community.
He came there on purpose and attacked the members of the Jewish community and carried out deliberate, unprovoked, religiously aggravated attacks on the three victims, who were wearing traditional clothing.” He will next appear in November at a court in Stratford in Warwickshire, 170 kilometers northwest of London.
To recall, as reported in ‘Bahadari Haredim’, a number of ultra-Orthodox residents of London were brutally attacked in August of last year by an anti-Semitic Muslim who passed him on the street of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Stamford Hill. After one of them was admitted to the hospital with injuries to his head and ankle, a police officer from the London Police came to his house to take a statement from him.
The victim said in an interview with the local media in London that he lost consciousness and broke his ankle after receiving a powerful punch to the face. His family first thought he had suffered a heart attack or something similar, until one of his grandchildren checked the security camera of the nearby synagogue and discovered the horror.