Ahnad Karamian pledged he would ‘keep doing it on a grander scale if he must’ after hurling objects from a fourth floor window
A man resorted to a violent rampage because he was “always hungry” before going on hunger strike. Ahnad Karamian trashed a communal area in the accommodation where he was being housed while seeking asylum and hurled objects from a fourth storey window.
He later told the police that he had done so to “get people’s attention” due to his frustration at a perceived lack of progress in his application to remain in the UK, pledging that he would “keep doing it on a grander scale if he must”. He has now told a judge: “I think it will never happen again.”
Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday afternoon, Tuesday, that Karamian was residing at Asylum 24 on Percy Street in Liverpool city centre‘s Georgian Quarter on November 4 this year when an employee “heard a loud bang” and found the 46-year-old throwing items from a fourth floor window. Missiles which were left smashed in the car park included a chair, a cupboard door, a bin and a mop and bucket.
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Sarah Egan, prosecuting, described how CCTV footage also showed the defendant ripping the window of the communal kitchen from its frame and pushing it to the ground below, causing between £5,000 and £10,000 of damage. Karamian, of no fixed address, then told the member of staff to “call the police” while standing on the ledge and looking out of the hole he had created in the wall of the grade two listed building.
Under interview, he told detectives that his “weekly benefits were not sufficient to cover his food expenses, so he was always hungry”. He also said he “didn’t like living in the hostel” and was “disappointed that people were helped before him when he had been there longer”.
Karamian was previously fined after pleaded guilty to threatening criminal damage in relation to an incident on May 29 this year, during which he sparked a cigarette lighter while asking a worker at his hostel “who would be to blame when he burned the place down”. It came after he became “unhappy with his living situation and began to argue with staff as he didn’t want to share a bedroom”.
When questioned in connection his latest offence, he said that he had committed his crimes to “get people’s attention” and to “receive help” – adding that he would “keep doing it on a grander scale if he must”. Karamian however claimed that he had “made sure no one was outside first” as he “didn’t want anyone to be hurt”.
He later told the author of a pre-sentence report that he was “fed up with being with drug addicts, noisy people and children” and was “extremely frustrated that his asylum application was taking so long”. The court heard that the Iranian national initially fled his homeland “because of the regime” while “fearing threats to his life”, later fighting in the Syrian war before arriving in this country by boat in August 2022.
Karamian also stated that he had been on hunger strike for nine days in HMP Altcourse. Represented himself in court, he told a judge: “I have been in 15 countries in the last 15 years. I am really tired and exhausted. I just needed help, that’s all.
“I expected not much. I just want to be normal, like people living in the UK. I was in the hostel with not enough money. They could at least place me in a quiet environment.
“I didn’t ask for special things – just very simple things like a human being, not a political refugee. No one listed to me. No one cared about me.
“I did something wrong. I feel ashamed. I feel guilty. I should respect the system in this beautiful country and this law. Of course I’m ashamed about that.
“I think it will never happened again. That’s enough now. I just want to live my life, that’s all. I just want to be a free person, that’s all. You can understand me, I think.”
Karamian admitted one count of criminal damage. Appearing via video link to the prison, he was jailed for 10 months. Sentencing, Judge David Potter said: “As well as the physical damage to the building, no doubt other people were frightened by what was happening.
“You were angry. When you were spoken to by the police, you told them that you were upset, angry, frustrated and tired by the length of the process of your claim for asylum.
“You frankly told the police that you committed the damage to this premises in order to generate attention to the fact that the process was, in your eyes, very slow. It is not the first time you have done something similar. This marks, therefore, an escalation in your behaviour.
“Your frustration with the asylum process provides no excuse for you committing damage to a premises for those who have sought protection in the UK, having fled their countries. You may have a valid claim for asylum but you must, as does everyone else, accept that there will inevitably be delays because of the sheer number of people claiming asylum and the investigations that must be carried out in respect of each and every application.
“However frustrating it must be, it is no justification to commit damage to the premises that was there to provide you with a roof over your head. If you commit further damage to your premises, I give you a solemn promise that the sentences imposed will be far longer.”
