Ololade Adeyanju/
The 26-year-old son of Nigerian lawmaker, Abraham Badru, murdered in London was a victim of revenge killing by a vicious gang he helped to jail 11 years ago, his mother has claimed.
Abraham’s father, Dolapo Badru, is a member of the House of Representatives representing Lagos Island Constituency 1.
The deceased worked as a football coach at the University of Gloucestershire, UK.
According to a report by MailOnline, Abraham had been stalked by the fear that one day someone would hunt him down and kill him and had spent the past 11 years constantly looking over his shoulder.
His mother, Ronke, said he had felt like a marked man from the moment he had stepped in and saved a young girl from being gang raped in 2007, when he was just 14.
His fear was further heightened when he gave his statement to the police, identified the attackers in an ID parade, and once more when he gave evidence against them at their trial.
After the encounter, he was bombarded with chilling late-night texts, calling him a “dead man”.
Despite being hailed as a hero, awarded a £500 reward by the trial judge for taking the stand and doing the right thing and subsequently awarded a National Police Bravery Award and got a standing ovation from senior officers at the ceremony, Abraham instinctively felt that some day, somewhere, someone would try to kill him.
And on the night of March 25 this year, they succeeded.
On the day of his murder, he had spent the afternoon with his father, who was visiting from Nigeria with his half sister, Wendy, in North London.
Abraham had arrived at the East London apartment, which he shared with his mother, just after 11 p.m. He stepped out of his car when he was shot by an unknown assailant.
A neighbour heard the gunshots and tried desperately to revive him, as did the police and ambulance crew who arrived soon afterwards.
Abraham died at the scene.
His mother told MailOnline: “I ran to him but the police wouldn’t let me go to him. I was crying, screaming, for my son. For 10 years, Abraham was afraid that someone would try to kill him. And now it has happened. I am empty. He was killed for being a hero. How can that possibly be right?”
She was, understandably, deeply concerned about the prospect of Abraham being a witness at the trial and initially expressed reservations about giving parental consent.
But, she says the police said if she refused to give her permission, she would be charged with perverting the course of justice.
“I thought I would probably have gone to prison. I had no choice,” she said.
So, Abraham gave evidence and, nine schoolboys, including gang ringleader, O’Neil Denton and his sidekick, Weiled Ibrahim, were convicted following the trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court in December 2008.
Abraham reportedly knew some members of the gang, known as Kingzhold Boys, whose single objective in life was to cause trouble, but he was not one of them.
The police later told his mother that without his help the 14-year-old victim would almost certainly have died in the attack on the Frampton Park estate that night in 2007.
Abraham spent his early years living with his mother, a 50-year-old support worker for people with mental health issues, on the Frampton Park estate.
She had separated from Abraham’s father, but the boy remained close to his father and visited him during the holidays
According to media reports of the incident, on the afternoon of April 30, 2007, Abraham took a call from a friend inviting him to a party in one of the high-rise flats. When he arrived, however, he realised this was no innocent party. Instead, he stumbled upon an appalling scene.
As he walked down a corridor, he looked into a flat where he saw, with horror, a young girl being raped and passed around like a piece of meat by up to nine boys. It later emerged the rape had been punishment for “disrespecting” 14-year-old gang member, O’Neil Denton, known as ‘Hitman’.
Last week, the coroner released Abraham’s body for burial.
Police have also offered a £20,000 reward and have appealed for witnesses who saw a cyclist entering an alleyway five minutes before the shooting. A man was seen running from the direction of the car into another alleyway and someone rode away on a bicycle with a white frame.
But, Abraham’s mother believes her son was let down, ultimately, by the justice system he so bravely stood up to support, as a scared 14-year-old boy, who had wanted to do the right thing.
“The girl was given a new identity, a new life, she was protected, as was her right. But Abraham should have been given the same protection. He was a victim, too,” she told MailOnline.
His murder comes in the midst of an unprecedented number of knife and gun killings in London.
Reports said at the time of his death, he was the tenth person to be murdered in London in just 12 days.
Among the rival gangs who are largely responsible for this epidemic of shootings, stabbings and general violence, killing has almost become normalized, reports further revealed.
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