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This is the moment an Iraqi immigrant stabbed a university student so he could be deported back home.

Ellis Wheeler, 18, was left fighting for his life after Rebaz Mohammed, 28, knifed him while he walked through Hoglands Park in Southampton last December.

Terrifying footage shows Mohammed pull a kitchen knife from his coat before plunging it into the teenager’s back, puncturing his lung, in front of horrified onlookers.

Mr Wheeler managed to evade any further blows and run away but ended up passing out before he could get any medical help.

Luckily, a ‘heroic’ friend was there to call 999 and put pressure on his wound until the police arrived.

Mohammed was arrested at the scene and told officers he had launched the attack because he wanted to be deported from the UK.

His defence lawyer, Richard Tutt, told Southampton Crown Court: ‘Mohammed believed, from what he had been told, that he needed to commit an offence that was serious enough.

‘He presents as a very naive person. He has experienced remorse, or at least sorrow.’

Mohammed, who initially came to the UK illegally on a small boat, lived in a hotel in Bournemouth, Dorset, at the time of the crime.

He had no work or money and had been ‘making what efforts he could to be deported’.

He had previously been cautioned for criminal damage and battery and in May 2022 and served 12 weeks in jail for racially aggravated harassment and stalking.

Jurors were told that Mr Wheeler, a first year Solent University student, remained under observation for five days after he underwent surgery for a collapsed lung.

He ended up missing his exams and still struggles to sleep as he his dogged by anxiety, the prosecution said.

Judge Brian Forster KC sentenced Mohammed, who admitted grievous bodily harm with intent and possessing a knife, to six years imprisonment with a four-year extended licence.

Speaking directly to the defendant, Judge Forster said: ‘When anyone carries out an attack with a knife it is down to chance.

‘This was an indiscriminate attack. Any member of our community could have been the victim.

‘You were willing to inflict a serious injury with a weapon to achieve your own end. You could have killed the victim.’

Commending the victim’s friend, the judge said he ‘may have saved his life’ and awarded him £250.

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