Family’s agony as teen who knifed Yousef Makki, 17, to death is freed from jail after just 7 months
THE family of stabbed schoolboy Yousef Makki have been left heartbroken again after the teen’s killer was freed from custody after just SEVEN MONTHS.
Yousef’s devastated sister Jade Akoum, 29, described Joshua Molnar being released early as like “another knife through the heart”.
She said: “This boy plunged a knife into my brother’s chest and now he’s walking the streets less than a year later.
“Our grief is so public. There’s nothing we can do in private.
“Those two boys are there all the time reminding us that Yousef was left to die in the street whilst they stood and watched worried for their own skins. This nightmare will never go away.”
This boy plunged a knife into my brother’s chest and now he’s walking the streets less than a year later
Jade Akoum
Yousef, 17, a scholarship student at the prestigious £12,000-a-year Manchester Grammar School, was knifed in the heart by Molnar, 18, during a fight over a botched drug deal in Hale Barns, Cheshire, on March 2 last year.
Molnar was cleared of murder and manslaughter following a four-week trial at Manchester Crown Court in July, telling the jury he acted in self-defence after Yousef pulled a blade on him.
He admitted possession of a knife and perverting the course of justice by initially lying to police about what had happened, and was given 16 months in custody.
'SIMPLY CRUSHING'
Molnar was arrested alongside Adam Chowdhary, 18, who bought the flick knife that killed Yousef online.
Cowdhary, then 17, was later acquitted of perverting the course of justice. He was given a four-month detention order after admitting possession of a flick knife.
Ms Akoum said today: “We found out Molnar was being set free on the actual morning he was being released. We had no prior warning that it was happening.
“We were mentally prepared for the release in mid-March not just a week before the anniversary.
The heartbroken sister described Molnar being back on the streets, so close to the anniversary of his death on March 2, as “simply crushing”.
She added: “To receive the news that Joshua Molnar, the boy who we hold entirely responsible for Yousef's death, is to be given early release from a Young Offenders Institute some six days before such a pivotal date in the lives of Yousef's many friends and family members, is simply crushing.
“There is no other word for it.”
‘MIDDLE CLASS GANGSTER’
Molnar came from a wealthy family and enjoyed all the trappings of a comfortable upbringing in affluent Cheshire, his trial heard.
He went to private schools and became friends with scholarship student Yousef, from Burnage in Manchester, at Manchester Grammar.
At the age of 15 he began using cannabis, sporting a bandana and keeping his weed and 'shank', also known as knife, in an Armani bag.
He began living what his own lawyer described as the double, fantasy life of a juvenile, "middle class gangster", "playing around with knives" and getting into fights.
One detective described him and a second defendant as "rich kids who have never had to live in the real world".
Molnar ended up getting "jumped" during an alleged drug deal to buy cannabis that went wrong.
He claimed Yousef and other pal Chowdhary did not help him in the fight, Manchester Crown Court heard.
He blamed Chowhary for arranging the ill-fated drug deal, and he claimed Yousef had taunted him, calling him a "p***y".
Molnar told jurors after he saw Yousef take his knife out, he felt "quite on edge" so he took his knife out in a bid to warn him off.
Asked if he knew how the knife ended up inside Yousef, he said: “Not really. I do not know what I did. I don’t know how it all came together.”
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