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The son of a Yemeni billionaire has admitted involvement within the loss of life of a Norwegian pupil discovered raped and strangled in Mayfair, however won’t return to the UK to face justice.
Martine Vik Magnussen, 23, was discovered lifeless in 2008 underneath rubble within the basement of a block of flats the place her college pal, Farouk Abdulhak, was dwelling on the time.
Police believed she had been raped and murdered, however the one suspect within the case – Mr Abdulhak – left the UK for Yemen earlier than her physique was found. He has by no means returned.
Now, greater than 15 years after the killing, Mr Abdulhak has spoken for the primary time concerning the incident and claimed to the BBC that Ms Vik Magnussen’s loss of life was the results of a “intercourse accident gone incorrect”.
The 2 had been college students at Regent’s Enterprise College in central London and a part of the identical younger worldwide social set.
But a autopsy examination discovered Ms Vik Magnussen died from “compression to the neck” and her physique had 43 cuts and grazes that had been mentioned to be typical of an assault or battle.
In a sequence of textual content messages exchanged with a BBC reporter investigating the case, Mr Abdulhak, who was 21 on the time of the loss of life, wrote: “I deeply remorse the unlucky accident that occurred. I remorse coming [to Yemen]. Ought to have stayed and paid the piper.”
Requested for readability concerning the circumstances of Ms Vik Magnussen’s loss of life, Mr Abdulhak mentioned: “It was simply an accident. Nothing nefarious…Like I instructed you only a intercourse accident gone incorrect.”
He went on to inform the reporter he was unable to remember actual particulars of the incident due to his cocaine use that night time: “Nobody is aware of as a result of I may barely piece collectively what occurred.”
On the night time in query, Ms Vik Magnussen had been celebrating her end-of-term exams with pals and left the Maddox nightclub in Mayfair with Mr Abdulhak at round 3am. At some stage, they returned to his flat in Nice Portland Road.
Mr Abdulhak flew out of Britain the next day, round 24 hours earlier than Ms Vik Magnussen’s semi-naked physique was found.
The UK doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Yemen.
Mr Abdulhak is the son of Shaher Abdulhak, who ran a enterprise empire that spanned the Center East and was the richest man in Yemen on the time, counting Ali Abdullah Saleh, the previous President of Yemen, amongst his shut pals. Shaher Abdulhak died in 2020. The former president died three years earlier.
Not ready to return to the UK
Chatting with the BBC reporter on a cellphone name, Mr Abdulhak mentioned he was not ready to return to the UK, including: “It is too chilly there. I do not just like the climate…I do not suppose justice can be served.
“I discover that the felony justice system there may be closely biased. I discover that they may need to make an instance of me being a son of an Arab, being…a son of somebody wealthy.”
In response to Mr Abdulhak’s feedback, Ms Vik Magnussen’s father, Odd Petter Magnussen, instructed the BBC: “[Mr Abdulhak] tries to painting it as a mutual, kind of, unintended consequence of a intercourse act.
“It’s undoubtedly been a intercourse act, nevertheless it has been pressured on Martine, so far as I can perceive from all the knowledge I’ve gathered all by way of the years.”
He added that Mr Abdulhak wanted to clarify to police within the UK what occurred to Ms Magnussen, “in order that my household and myself can get some peace of thoughts”.
The BBC additionally spoke to a detailed pal of Mr Abdulhak’s father, Mustafa Norman, who revealed that the previous President of Yemen met with the scholar when he left the UK.
Mr Norman, a former Yemeni diplomat, mentioned: “Ali Abdullah Saleh was sympathetic to Shaher, as a result of they’d had a relationship for thus lengthy.
“He made certain he didn’t have at hand the boy over. He additionally noticed Farouk after the incident. Ali Abdullah Saleh wished to reassure him that nothing would occur to him.”
Diplomatic row
Within the aftermath of Ms Vik Magnussen’s loss of life, Scotland Yard mentioned Mr Abdulhak was certainly one of Britain’s most wished males and David Miliband, then overseas secretary, personally intervened, promising to do all he may to make sure the “surprising” case was resolved.
However a one-off extradition request was turned down by the Yemeni overseas minister in February 2009, prompting a diplomatic row.
The investigation can be broadcast within the documentary This World: Homicide in Mayfair at 9pm on BBC Two on Tuesday. It would even be out there on iPlayer.
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