Injured student claims street attack; others say Asian students taunted Leeds players
By Associated Press
An Asian student who was allegedly beaten unconscious in January 2000 by a gang that included two Leeds United soccer stars said that he ran for his life when he was chased away from a nightclub. Sarfraz Najeib, 20, testified on Feb. 14 that he tripped as he ran and remembered little else of the attack in Leeds, England.
He woke up in a hospital with fractures to his face and left leg, and is still unable to breath properly through his nose, which was broken in three places.
“It is still swollen,” Najeib told the jury at Hull Crown Court. “I can’t breathe very well on one side of my nose. The surgeon said it would take six to 12 months. I still have problems and it still hurts.”
Najeib said his cheekbones also were broken and he needed 12 stitches on the side of his head above his left ear. He told the jury he was still doing physiotherapy exercises on his leg.
Asked by prosecutor Nicholas Campbell how the attack had affected him emotionally, Najeib replied: “I am always paranoid when I am out. I don’t have much of a social life, and after university I go straight back home. I am always nervous.”
The prosecution alleges that Leeds stars Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate and a Leeds reserve striker, Tony Hackworth, were among a group of white men who attacked Najeib after they had left the Majestyk nightclub. Najeib was allegedly punched and kicked while he lay on the ground.
Bowyer, Woodgate and Hackworth, 20, are charged with causing grievous bodily harm and affray. Central defender Michael Duberry is accused of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by driving his three teammates away from the scene. Two other men, Neal Caveney and Paul Clifford, both 21, are accused of causing grievous bodily harm, affray and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. All the defendants deny all the charges.
Campbell said the defendants, except Duberry, had been drinking in Leeds city center, with some visiting a lap-dancing bar before going to the nightclub.
Najeib, who was with his brother Shahzad in the nightclub, said he saw a group of eight or nine men inside the club drinking champagne and fooling around, pretending to fight each other.
His brother told him that he recognized one of the group as Woodgate. As he and his friends left the club, the same group was outside.
“We were just walking, and I was in the middle somewhere, and one of the guys said something to me and after a few seconds hit me round the back of my head,” Najeib told the jury. “I could hear footsteps behind me. I am not sure how many people were behind me. I just believed they would beat me up.
“I fell to the ground and my glasses went flying. I quickly turned round and saw a guy coming towards me and, in self-defense, I hit him back. I thought he was going to hit me again. I jumped up to my feet and heard my brother shouting ‘run’.
“I was just running for my life. I was scared for my life and I was concentrating on running away.”
Najeib said he ran toward a friend’s car and was halfway down the street when he tripped.
“That’s all I can remember,” he said. “I was unconscious after that.”
Campbell told the jury when the trial opened on Feb. 12 that Woodgate was seen jumping onto the stricken student’s body with both feet, while Bowyer embraced another one of the alleged attackers after the assault to celebrate “the victory they believed they had won.”
Shahzad Najeib, 21, also took the stand on Feb. 13.
“I heard this loud scream and I looked around and I realized my brother was on the floor and that he had bumped his head on the wall or something,” he said.
“When I looked round, he seemed to be unconscious and there were four or five guys around him who started kicking him while he was lying there unconscious. As I walked towards them one of the guys punched me in the face.”
In the football players defense, a doorman at the Majestyk nightclub, Graham Lawson, told Hull Crown Court that James Hewison had been thrown out of the club for being drunk and looking for fights with customers. As Woodgate and other friends tried to calm him down outside and lectured him for ruining their evening, the group of students, including Sarfraz Najeib came out. Lawson said the students started “taunting” and laughing at Hewison, who twice “squared up” to them, despite being restrained by England defender Woodgate.
“They were saying things like ‘you can’t hold your drink,’ so he went over to them. He was generally confronting them,” Lawson testified.
He said Woodgate had pulled his friend away, but the Asian group had continued laughing.
Cross-examined by Bowyer’s lawyer, Desmond de Silva, Lawson agreed that for one of the students to strike Hewison was “a crazy thing to do.”
The trial is expected to last at least five weeks. The Leeds players are still free to play for their club. |
