A man who fatally stabbed a woman inside her Croydon flat and then inflicted a wound on himself in an attempt to pass the killing off as self-defence has been jailed for life, with a minimum term of 19 years.
How the case against Simon Ghebremedhin was built
Simon Ghebremedhin, 34, of Streatham High Road, was sentenced on Tuesday for the murder of 26-year-old Marjama Osman. The killing took place on 31 May last year at Ms Osman’s home on Frith Road. Emergency services were alerted after a passer-by came across her lying unconscious on the pavement outside the property. Officers who arrived at the scene also found Ghebremedhin there, nursing a knife wound to his abdomen.
The pair were known to one another. On the day of the attack, Ghebremedhin had gone to Ms Osman’s flat, where the two began to argue. CCTV captured him behaving erratically outside the building, smashing his own mobile phone and hammering on the door before Ms Osman eventually let him in. Once inside, he stabbed her. She managed to flee the flat before collapsing in the street.
Why his account did not stand up
Ghebremedhin maintained that he had acted in self-defence, claiming Ms Osman had attacked him with a knife. Detectives, however, found no support for that version of events in the footage they recovered. The CCTV showed him pursuing Ms Osman from the flat without any visible injury. He was then seen returning inside alone, and investigators concluded it was at that point that he inflicted the wound on himself in order to bolster his account.
A family left to relive the attack in court
Speaking after sentencing, Detective Inspector Aytac Necati of the Metropolitan Police said his thoughts were with those who had loved Ms Osman. “The evidence presented at trial was graphic and highly distressing, which meant Marjama’s loved ones were subjected to further torment and anguish,” he said, acknowledging the ordeal endured by her family and friends as the details of her final moments were laid out in court.
