(Picture: British Transport Police/PA Wire)
An asylum seeker accused of stabbing a woman to death with a screwdriver has insisted he hasn’t lied about his age, and it was just ‘assumed’ by rescuers who pulled him from the Mediterranean Sea.
Deng Chol Majek claimed a date of birth suggesting he is 27, was ‘just assumed’ by Italian authorities and he is 19 and that he left Sudan aged 16.
The migrant is alleged to have murdered Rhiannon Whyte using a screwdriver at Walsall’s Bescot Stadium railway station on October 20 last year.
Giving evidence in the second week of his trial, Majek repeatedly denied that he was a man caught on CCTV wearing clothing described by the Crown as ‘identical’ to his.
The defendant, who is being assisted in court by an Arabic interpreter, denies murder, claiming a figure caught on CCTV at the station and then visiting local shops to buy beer is not him, and that DNA evidence incriminating him is wrong.
Sign up for all of the latest stories
Start your day informed with Metro’s News Updates newsletter or get Breaking News alerts the moment it happens.
Wolverhampton Crown Court has heard that Majek came to the UK in July last year because his claim for asylum was refused by the German authorities, and was housed at Walsall’s Park Inn hotel, where Ms Whyte worked.
Prosecutors allege he ‘tracked’ the 27-year-old victim to the station shortly after her shift finished at 11pm, stabbed her more than 20 times on a platform, and then visited a shop to buy beer.
During his second day in the witness box, Majek told jurors he had a German identity document by August 2023 which recorded his date of birth as January 1 1998.
But he claimed that date, which would make him 27, was wrong and was due to a ‘mistake’ by officials in Italy.
‘I had a German ID and it had my name on it,’ Majek told the court through a Sudanese Arabic interpreter. ‘The Italian authorities moved me to Germany, therefore they passed on my information including my name.’
Majek, who maintains that his real date of birth is January 1 2006, added: ‘The date of birth (recorded in Italy and Germany) was wrong from the beginning and I was told that I am not going to be able to fix it.
‘When I got saved in the sea by the Italian authorities they were talking to me and I wasn’t understanding, and they put this date of birth without asking me about my actual date of birth.
‘They didn’t ask me for my date of birth, they just assumed it.’
The defendant, who denies murder and possessing a screwdriver as an offensive weapon, said of his time in Italy: ‘I wasn’t provided with an interpreter.
‘I was just saying ‘yes, yes, yes’ and I wasn’t understanding anything and they have just written my date of birth like this.’
Prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC put it to Majek that he was not aged 16 when he left Sudan and that the reason he had said he was born in 1998 was because that was the truth.
During further questioning from Ms Heeley, Majek denied that he had bumped into Ms Whyte while leaving the hotel, and said he had not been staring at her and two female colleagues during her shift.
‘I am telling you it wasn’t me,’ he told the jury. ‘I didn’t cause any problems, I didn’t do anything. I never touched her.’
Ms Heeley alleged that Deng Chol Majek had been ‘utterly callous’ when he was seen dancing in a car park after Rhiannon Whyte had been stabbed more than 20 times.
Addressing jurors on Thursday, Ms Heeley said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you have a stark choice. Do you accept the evidence of an independent forensic scientist, or do you believe the defendant who sat silently in interview, with no answers to police questions?
‘Do you accept the detailed, colour CCTV footage of the attacker in identical clothing to the defendant, or do you believe the defendant when he says ‘it’s not me’.
‘You may think it’s not really a difficult question. I suggest his answers to you are laughable. He is trying to meet the overwhelming evidence, and he has failed.’
Ms Heeley added: ‘He had no answer in interview, he knew he was guilty and that is why he sat silently.’
Majek claims to be 19 but is aged 27 if a date of birth used by German authorities is accurate, the court has heard.
Asking jurors to consider what issues Majek was prepared to lie about, Ms Heeley said: ‘You do not need to resolve how old the defendant was, but I suggest it is telling that the Italian and German authorities had his date of birth as the same date and month that he gave to you, the 1st of January.
‘If he is prepared to lie about that to you, what else is he prepared to lie about?’
The trial continues.
