A machete attacker who left a ‘talented footballer’ to die on the street has been jailed for life. Oguzcan Dereli stabbed Abdul-Latif Pouget in the thigh after following the 20-year-old down a side street off Clerkenwell Road on October 18, 2024.
The 26-year-old then calmly walked back to his waiting Ford Focus, driving off as horrified onlookers rushed to help a collapsed Abdul. Paramedics initially believed he had crashed his moped into a wall before finding the arterial stab wound.
Abdul died in the Royal London Hospital three days later. In court, his mother Kawsaw Pouget said she wished she could swap places with her son on that fateful night.
She added: “Our beloved Abdul-Latif Pouget — known to us simply as Abs — had just turned 20, two months before the attack. His life was taken from us too early. He was young, intelligent and full of promise. Though he cannot speak for himself at this hearing, we are here to honour him and speak in his name.”
CCTV footage captured Dereli arriving at the scene, wielding the large knife and dropping his phone as he exited his car on Back Hill. Officers were sent to arrest him at his home on Islington’s Alexander Road but could not find him on the night of the murder.
He was later spotted checking into a hotel in Shoreditch with his partner – one day after the vicious killing. During the trial at the Old Bailey, Dereli said he had the machete with him because it had been left in his car by a friend, and that he was planning to throw it in the canal when he saw Abdul.
This, and claims the stabbing was in self-defence, were rejected by the jury and he was found guilty on Friday, July 18 following a two-week trial. Judge Sarah Whitehouse KC jailed Dereli for life with a minimum term of 24 years.
She told him: “We shall probably never know why you chose to get out of your car that night and run over and stab Mr Pouget.”
Detective Chief Inspector Lucie Card, who led the Met’s investigation, added: “My thoughts and that of my team remain with Abdul’s family, a much loved brother, friend and neighbour. A young man has tragically died in a senseless and brutal way.
“I can only hope that this sentence can go some way in providing a sense of justice to Abdul’s family.”
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