Amidst escalating discussions about the readiness of the teams participating in the 2026 World Cup, the Italy national football team has once again become a focus of media analysis. This isn’t due to any direct sporting developments, but rather to hypothetical scenarios related to potential changes outside the traditional sporting context.

According to some media analyses, one of the proposed scenarios involves the possibility of Iran’s participation being affected by the escalating geopolitical tensions between Iran, the United States, and Israel. This factor is being viewed from the perspective of “organizational possibility,” not as an official decision issued by any party so far.

Italy holding out hope

From an organizational standpoint, FIFA has several mechanisms in place to deal with exceptional circumstances that may arise before the start of major tournaments, particularly regarding the withdrawal or inability of a team to participate after the list of qualified teams has been finalized. This theoretically opens the door to alternative options for filling any vacant spots.

An analytical reading of these scenarios indicates that the available options typically revolve around three main paths: maintaining continental balance by selecting a replacement team from the same continent; resorting to the FIFA rankings to select the highest-ranked team among those not qualified; or adopting an exceptional solution such as a playoff or a decisive match held before the tournament begins if time is short.

Within this context, Italy’s name emerges as one of the teams that might be discussed theoretically, given its high international ranking, footballing history, and technical and marketing weight. However, this proposal is not based on any official decision or announcement from FIFA so far, but rather on a potential scenario for dealing with a possible gap in the list of participants.

Continental representation

Conversely, FIFA’s priority in such cases seems to be maintaining balanced continental representation, which might lead to the option of replacing a team from the same continent in the event of any withdrawal. Here, the UAE’s national team is a prominent candidate, before considering more complex solutions related to rankings or organizing playoff matches.

The idea of ​​an “emergency playoff” before the tournament begins is raised in some analytical discussions as an exceptional solution to the time constraints, but it remains a complex option from an organizational and logistical standpoint, especially for a tournament the size of the World Cup and its associated marketing arrangements, global broadcasting, and meticulous scheduling.

Therefore, Italy’s return to the World Cup remains, for now, within the realm of theoretical assumptions linked to uncertain possibilities. The only certainty is that the list of participating teams in the 2026 World Cup remains as it was based on the official qualifiers, without any announced changes to date.

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A report by Sportico reveals a radical shift in the income structure of top athletes throughout history. On-field earnings are no longer the sole determining factor in wealth creation, as income from outside competitions now exceeds 70% in many cases, driven by sponsorship deals, licensing agreements, and investments.

According to the ranking, which is based on adjusted total earnings for inflation, along with precise estimates including salaries, prize money, and commercial revenue, basketball legend Michael Jordan tops the list with a total of €3.011 billion, ahead of golf star Tiger Woods. Cristiano Ronaldo, captain of Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr, comes in third.

This ranking not only reflects athletic excellence but also reveals the exceptional ability of some stars to transform their careers into sustainable business ventures.

Off-the-field revenue: the new centre of gravity

The report confirms that the majority of athletes’ wealth now comes from outside of competition, as the sports industry expands and transforms into a massive entertainment and investment sector.

This shift isn’t limited to retired athletes; it’s also evident among stars still at the peak of their careers, such as Lionel Messi and LeBron James.

Despite the significant increase in player salaries and contracts in the modern era, a number of sports legends have maintained their prominent positions thanks to long-term investments and extensive commercial partnerships.

In terms of distribution, golf and football have the most prominent presence in the top ten.

Highest Earning Players of All Time (according to Sportico):

1. Michael Jordan – €3.011 billion

2. Tiger Woods – €2.503 billion

3. Cristiano Ronaldo – €2.190 billion

4. LeBron James – €1.764 billion

5. Lionel Messi – €1.729 billion

6. Arnold Palmer – €1.607 billion

7. Jack Nicklaus – €1.590 billion

8. David Beckham – €1.460 billion

9. Roger Federer – €1.455 billion

10. Floyd Mayweather – €1.364 billion

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Liverpool don’t need reminding what a European night at Anfield can do but they’ll need every watt of that electricity to overturn a 2–0 deficit against Paris Saint‑Germain. Arne Slot has spent the week insisting his team’s history is their fuel, not their burden.

In his pre-match press conference, Liverpool manager Slot said:

The answer is already in the history of Liverpool. This group has shown it can come back after setbacks. This club has also shown it can do very special things in difficult moments.

Liverpool face a PSG with no fear

Meanwhile, Luis Enrique, Slot’s counterpart has been calm, bullish and utterly unmoved by the Anfield mythology. He said:

We know how difficult this game will be, I think tomorrow will be a very tight match. Our mentality is to win every match.

He also welcomed the challenge of the Anfield atmosphere:

We know how difficult it is to play here at Anfield, but it’s also a source of motivation for us.

Liverpool is a very high‑level team and thinking you’re the favourite is the best way to fail. For me, there isn’t one.

Salah’s Champions League curtain call

Mohamed Salah steps into Anfield tonight carrying more than Liverpool’s Champions League hopes. He carries a decade of expectation, a legacy, and the possibility that this may be the last time he hears the Champions League anthem in Liverpool red under the famous Anfield lights.

If it is his final Champions League night for the club, it comes with a strange balance: the danger of what could be lost, and the comfort of what he has already given. Since 2017, Salah has helped shape Liverpool’s modern European identity. Kyiv, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, his mark is firmly stamped on the biggest nights of the Jürgen Klopp era. He became the symbol of Liverpool’s return to the top, the player who made extraordinary numbers feel normal, and who turned pressure into performance.

Salah has never relied on sentiment. He deals in decisive moments. He can take control of a match with one run, one finish, one touch. If Liverpool are to turn the tie against PSG and keep their season alive, it will likely come through him: his movement, his composure, and his gift for making a small chance feel inevitable.

Whatever the result, Anfield will see him differently tonight. As they did against Fulham, grateful, anxious, and aware that eras rarely end with speeches. They end on nights like this.

The stakes

Liverpool must begin with intensity to build momentum, while PSG should stay composed and settle into the match. Both teams have experience in these situations. Slot needs confidence, and Enrique must maintain control. One team is fighting for survival, while the other seeks victory. Tonight, Anfield will determine the outcome.

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UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese has spoken about the “rollercoaster” her life has become since standing up against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Albanese and opposition to genocide

Francesca Albanese has been personally sanctioned by the US and targeted by the Israel lobby for her refusal to back down in her condemnation and her calls for justice. Yet even in an article that flirts with accepting that Albanese’s lionisation by opponents of genocide is merited – and even uses the word genocide itself without ‘distancing-by-speech-marks’ – Guardian writer Julian Borger can’t quite resist the corporate urge to regurgitate debunked Israeli narratives.

Borger introduces the carnage in Gaza not as war crimes and genocide but as an “untreated wound of Israel-Palestine [that] has shown its capacity every generation to give the rest of the world a fever”, as if opposition to colonisation, apartheid, and slaughter is some kind of disorder.

He recycles Israel’s claim of the 2023 “Hamas attack…which killed about 1,200 people, provok[ing] a ferocious Israeli response”. Israel was known, very soon after October 2023, to have killed hundreds of its own citizens in ‘Hannibal’ attacks during the raid; the raid consisted of other groups, not just Hamas. Israel has killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians since the raid, not the 75,000 Borger quotes – as the subject of his interview has frequently pointed out.

Yet he mentions none of that, despite its obvious aptness in his article. Not opposing genocide is the disease and its symptoms reach very far into Western and especially UK ‘mainstream’ media.

Steadfast

Borger also fails to point out the illegality of the sanctions the US has imposed on Albanese. But he does at least give some attention to their impact on the steadfast UN volunteer. And that’s where Albanese’s courage is given chance to shine through. Trump’s sanctions are massive blow to any prospect of a normal life – Albanese is unable to use a credit card, is severely limited in access to banking and relies on cash lent by family members. Yet she is without self-pity, even as she honestly describes the blow and its injustice:

It was bad. That sort of puts you together with mass murderers and drug dealers of international proportions. It was a paradox of facing one of the harshest forms of punishment without due process, because I’ve not even been afforded the possibility to defend myself. I’ve just been sanctioned without trial.

The article does address the Israel lobby’s threats against Albanese – and her 13-year-old daughter – and the cowardice of the World Bank, where her husband works. It mentions the Zionists’ threat to rape her child. But Borger expresses all of these impersonally and without attribution, like acts of God or natural disasters:

One anonymous caller said her daughter would be raped, giving the name of the school she attended in Tunis, Tunisia, where the family lives. Albanese went to the police for protection. While she doesn’t give details of the arrangements, she says: “I have what I need.”

Craven corporate media

Borger doesn’t make even a passing reference to the mass rapes of Palestinian prisoners that are common in Israeli concentration camps. He doesn’t mention Zionist death threats against other opponents of genocide, such as Hind Rajab Foundation director Dyab Abou Jahjah and his family. He doesn’t examine the UK government’s lawfare war on anti-genocide speech and activism, an obvious relative of Trump’s state terror – though Albanese refers to and condemns it, as well as the “monster” behind it, Keir Starmer.

But the cravenness of corporate media makes the courage of those who do stand up shine all the brighter – and so it is here. Albanese freely admits that the impact of the sanctions has been “brutal” enough to make her pause and consider, but she is unbowed:

That is when I started wondering: is it worth it? I have two kids. What if they harm them? I cannot take this responsibility. There is a lot that I’m putting on the line, but, at the same time, I don’t have any alternative. I still need to continue to throw water on the fire and I have a bigger bucket right now … and strong arms.

And Francesca Albanese finishes with a lesson for all of us as well as for the spineless establishment media, not to let fear stop us being free, and to stand in solidarity with those who need it:

My life has become a rollercoaster. I never imagined living without a bank card, but I do. People help me.

My freedom is stronger than my fear. You are defeated the moment you stop fighting.

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Palantir’s UK head Louis Mosley – grandson of infamous British fascist Oswald Mosley – was forced to sit and take it on BBC television today, 13 April 2026, as former parliamentary candidate Faiza Shaheen told viewers some hard truths about his company.

The pair were on the programme to discuss Green party leader Zack Polanski’s call for the spyware company – which aids Israel in its slaughter of civilians in Palestine and Lebanon – to be removed from its contract to handle NHS patient data.

How could anyone argue? But they did, claiming that NHS data is in a mess and therefore Palantir is needed. But Shaheen wasn’t having it that a firm whose founders boasted about killing people and refused to say that the human race should survive should be anywhere near the NHS. So she let the rictus-faced Mosley have both barrels:

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We investigated the networks that claim to be grassroots organisations fighting antisemitism. But underneath the surface, all is not as it seems.

Our Fight and Stop The Hate UK have been active since October 2023. Both present as independent groups fighting Jewish discrimination, putting themselves amongst grassroots communities fighting antisemitism in the UK. Seems good, right?

Yet from our findings, which are so unbelievably shocking, we don’t understand how they are still operating.

Two groups, one mission

To the public eye, they are completely separate groups, but it turns out they are very close to one another.

Stop The Hate UK has been seen online praising the work of the founder and CEO of Our Fight, Mark Birbeck – a software developer from the UK who has worked with the likes of Shell and Lego. They have been vocal about how honoured they are to stand alongside him.

Stop The Hate UK claims they attend protests to ensure the ‘media coverage includes our voices and doesn’t solely focus on pro-Palestine activism’. In our opinion, this look less like an antisemitism campaign but more a PR mission.

The network within Our Fight

Our Fight was founded by Mark Birbeck. After 7 October 2023, the group’s website presents itself as if one person is writing all the articles under the author name of ‘Our Fight’. However, independent investigation website Power Base Info has found that there are in fact multiple people behind the site’s articles.

Investigations have led us to confirm that Mark is involved, with his name being shown as an author. We found this information via the website’s site map. One of the links had ‘author/mark’, which confirms to us he runs the website and publishes the articles written by himself and the contributors.

Most writers on the site have major connections to the LM Network, a libertarian ideological network with a long history of controversy, including Mike Fume, who is the founder of Living Marxism, now rebranded as Spiked. (The magazine has a habit of denying genocides.) Fume worked in communications for Nigel Farage’s Brexit party in 2019 and has spoken at many Our Fight events.

Sabine Beppler-Saphl, a German reporter for Spiked and a contributing author for Our Fight, has published Facebook posts stating that ‘Islam deserves no special protection’.

Another Our Fight journalist, Thomas Deichmann, is famously known for his article claiming ITN fabricated footage of Bosnian Muslim protestors in a concentration camp. Of course, the courts found this indefensible, and this resulted in the magazine that published it, Living Marxism, having to cease trading and rebrand to Spiked because they couldn’t afford the £375,000 in damages. Deichmann is also part of the LM and Spiked networks, along with Beppler-Saphl.

Then we have Niyak Ghorbani, an Iranian dissident and journalist, and arguably the most visible public face of the organisation. Ghorbani is pro-Israeli and is known to attend pro-Israeli demos in London. He is also a fan of GB News and Tommy Robinson, sharing their content across his platforms. So much for stopping the spread of hate.

Finally, we have Kurpa Patel. She is the most active on the ground among Our Fight activists. But her involvement goes far beyond that; she has been pictured wearing pro-IOF materials at demos and was even arrested by the police for doing this outside a Bob Vylan concert.

Calling yourself a ‘campaigner against hate’ whilst wearing the merchandise of a military that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians is a contradiction. It’s hard to wrap your head around. Her Facebook profile is also emblazoned with the term ‘Proud Zio’, just in case anybody was unsure.

The pattern

Looking behind both groups’ banners, it’s plain to see a constant pattern of the same belief: any criticism of Israel is antisemitism.

The consistent theme of posts and articles is to heap blame upon Muslims and pro-Palestine activists. This has no doubt been the source of much animosity. Many pro-Palestinian journalists have found themselves in conflict with these groups. They have been labelled as antisemites for speaking out about a government responsible for the ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Let’s be clear: speaking up about the actions that Israel has taken towards the people in Gaza is not antisemitism. Nor is standing with the Palestinian people or calling for a ceasefire.

Choosing to say it is, is a deliberate political decision. It aims to protect a military force from facing the truth of its actions.

Who is funding this?

To date, we have found no evidence to suggest who is funding either of these groups. That said, it’s clear to see that multiple people involved across both organisations have connections to other networks that may be funded by pro-Israeli lobbies operating in the UK. Such networks have been known to fund these types of groups in the past.

Possible GDPR violations?

Our Fight has a section on its website where you can sign up to be a member and support via donations, handing over their personal data. Through our investigations, we saw they had no page on their site that contains any privacy policies. This is a legal requirement if you’re storing and handling other people’s data.

Our Fight and Stop The Hate UK: instruments of hate

Neither Our Fight nor Stop The Hate UK are the grassroots organisations they claim to be. Nor are they making any attempt to stomp out hate. If anything, both have been instrumental in amplifying hate, spreading discord, and celebrating the deaths of thousands of people in Gaza.

Muslims, pro-Palestinian activists, and independent pro-Palestine journalists have been consistently targeted by both groups. Some individuals have even been doxxed.

Palestinians and Muslims are an undeserving target of Zionist groups. But they will continue to be, as long as groups like Our Fight and Stop The Hate UK are publishing their vitriol.

Real antisemitism is unfortunately still alive and well, and we should treat it seriously when we are presented with it. But branding any and all condemnation of a genocide as antisemitism is reductive and disrespectful. It does nothing to bring an end to any conflict.

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The Washington Post has published an article calling for the murder of Iranian negotiators to force Iran to capitulate to US and Israel demands that the aggressors have been unable to achieve militarily. Pakistani intelligence and its air force thwarted alleged Israeli plans to do just that.

In “Iran thinks it has leverage. Here’s how Trump can prove it wrong“, its author, Marc A Thiessen, demands a resumption of the illegal US-Israel war of aggression if Iran does not concede everything Trump (and therefore of course Israel) wants. And he calls specifically for the US to [emphases added]:

carry out a final barrage of leadership strikes, eliminating the Iranian officials who had been spared for the purpose of negotiations. Iran’s leaders must be made to understand that their lives literally depend on reaching a negotiated settlement to Trump’s liking. If they refuse to do so, they will be killed.

Washington Post is gutter journalism

Thiessen is a former Bush speechwriter who has defended the use of torture to achieve US ends. He is also a genocide-denying Israel fanatic who, almost ten years ago, was calling for there to be no peace in Palestine. When peaceful protesters gathered outside the White House in 2023 to demand an end to Israel’s genocide, Thiessen wanted all protesters to be pursued by police and accused the Democratic party of allowing itself to be filled with “antisemites” because Israel are “the good guys”.

Thiessen has been described as “nakedly propagandistic [and] flagrantly dishonest” and “selling [the Gaza] genocide”. He is a ‘senior fellow’ of the hard-right, neocon ‘American Enterprise Institute’. He has called for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and described the fake 2025 Gaza ‘ceasefire’ as Donald Trump:

[standing] astride the world and delivered something that had eluded every Republican and Democratic president: a Middle East peace.

Israel continues to slaughter and starve innocent Palestinians in Gaza and civilians in Lebanon, which it has invaded while bombing Iran.

In 2024, Thiessen said he was “stunned” by criticism of Israel’s raid in Gaza to retrieve four prisoners of war. The IOF murdered at least 274 civilians during the raid. Thiessen went on to say that anyone who criticised the raid “may be an antisemite”:

The author’s willingness to call, publicly, for the murder of peace negotiators is hardly surprising given the source. What ought to be surprising is the Washington Post giving him space to express his murderous, racist imperialism, as it does regularly. However, the paper has long served US imperialism and perhaps even more so since its take-over by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

The article remains online at the time of writing.

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The government’s Crime and Policing Bill returns to the commons for its final stages on Tuesday 14 April. MPs will consider lords amendments, including a proposal that will grant the police sweeping new powers to restrict or effectively ban protests (Lords Amendment 312).

The government introduced Amendment 312 in the lords without a vote. This means it has so far avoided scrutiny or debate in the commons. Andy McDonald MP has tabled a motion to oppose the amendment. His motion has broad cross-party support, reflecting the widespread opposition to the government’s extreme proposal. MPs will have their only chance to push it to a vote on 14 April.

‘Cumulative disruption’

If it becomes law, Lords Amendment 312 would require the police to take into account any “cumulative disruption” caused by past or future planned protests in the same “area” when deciding whether to impose restrictions.

The amendment doesn’t define what constitutes the same ‘area’. It could include an entire town or the whole of central London. And it won’t matter whether the protests involve the same cause or people.

For example, an anti-racist march could be blocked from Whitehall because a farmers’ protest happened there six months earlier. Or police could restrict a Pride march because a far-right demonstration recently happened in the same town.

Although government statements make clear these powers have come forward in response to the mass national marches for Palestinian rights since October 2023, the impact of this change of law would be wide-ranging on protest groups in general.

Over 45 civil society organisations have joined forces to demand the government withdraws this proposal. These include the Trades Union Congress, Liberty and Greenpeace. They join more than 100 leading legal scholars and lawyers and over 100 Members of Parliament.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, Gina Romero, has also warned that she has serious concerns on the knock-on effects of the proposals. For example, authoritarian governments around the world could use them as a template.

Trying to make protest toothless

Even before this proposal, the UK’s protest laws had attracted widespread criticism. Extensive police powers already exist which severely limit the right to protest. These include the previous government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023.

Lords Amendment 312 follows a succession of illiberal anti-protest laws. It represents a major assault on the freedoms of expression, association and assembly that underpin protest rights. This government, or any future one, could use it to effectively stamp out political demonstrations, actions that are part of industrial disputes, and protests altogether.

Effective protests often recur in the same or similar places. And no protest movement has ever brought about change through a one-off demonstration. Landmark democratic struggles, such as the campaign for women’s suffrage and the movement against apartheid in South Africa, all relied on the ‘cumulative’ impact of repeated protests over many years.

On Monday 13 April at 3pm, campaigners and a cross-party group of MPs handed in petitions condemning the government’s attacks on our right to protest, totalling over 40,000 signatures. On Tuesday 14 April, Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called a demonstration outside parliament at 6pm to coincide with any vote on Lords Amendment 312.

Ryvka Barnard, deputy director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said:

This proposal should alarm everyone who believes that democratic freedoms must be defended. It represents the government’s latest draconian attempt to erode our civil liberties in order for it to maintain its complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.

The UK’s political and military support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its continued ethnic cleansing in the illegally occupied West Bank, and illegal strikes on Iran and Lebanon, continue to cause huge public outrage and fuel the ongoing protests involving hundreds of thousands of ordinary people across the country.

Instead of listening to the public and addressing its responsibilities under international law, the government is trying to repress protest through ever more authoritarian laws.

The right to protest, including in solidarity with the Palestinian people, is a precious democratic principle under threat from this government, and it must be defended.

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The father-of-two whose strike killed “beautiful, determined and loving soul” Zahwa Mukhtar has been sentenced to 16-and-a-half years in prison for her murder.

Duane Owusu, 36, will serve nearly 16 years before being considered for parole after his murder conviction in March at the Old Bailey.

Judge Richard Marks KC told Owusu he delivered “a forceful blow for which there was absolutely no need or justification”.

He also reprimanded his “callous and selfish behaviour” the night Zahwa, 27, was assaulted and killed.

To Zahwa’s family in court, Judge Marks expressed his “extreme sympathies and commiserations for [their] terrible loss”.

Deaf financial assistant, Zahwa, suffered unsurvivable head injuries when her head struck the ground after falling backwards in Chadwell Heath Lane, Romford, last August.

Moments before Owusu hit her, he’d pushed Zahwa out of a parked car and aimed two kicks at her face following a volatile journey.

Zahwa happened to meet Owusu and his friends, some of whom gave evidence in the murder trial, in Palatine Road, Hackney, before deciding to travel with them towards Romford.

She made no attempt to break her fall when she was struck suddenly. Zahwa was later pronounced dead at the scene by emergency services at about 6.21am on Saturday 16 August 2025.

Sentencing remarks

While passing his sentence, Judge Marks said it was “absolutely clear the only person about whom you were concerned at the time was yourself”.

He continued:

I accept that you did not know that she was gravely injured, nor indeed that the injuries were so severe as to be unrecoverable, but the point is, that you couldn’t have cared less. Whereas a moment’s investigation would have revealed she was lying unconscious.

Whatever may have been her condition, you were content to leave her there, flat out on her back as a result of a blow from you, on her own at 4.30am. Clearly, very substantially under the influence of drink and or drugs, and for all you knew, miles away from home and with no means of getting home. More callous and selfish behaviour it is difficult to imagine.

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Owusu was dismissed from court immediately after his sentence was delivered on Tuesday 14 April.

His defence barrister, Michael Borrelli KC, called him a “man who has within him, a decent moral compass”.

He added that Owusu was “somebody who’s clearly well thought of, not only by family and friends, but those who have had contact with him”.

Through his barrister, Owusu expressed “deep sorrow and regret” to the Mukhtar family before explaining how the “family man”, who has spent nearly eight months in custody, also “feels the pain of losing children”.

‘A young woman who still had dreams to fulfill’

The family’s victim impact statement read out in court was written by Zahwa’s brother, Jamaluddin Mukhtar.

It described the aspiring accountant as “a remarkable young woman whose life was shaped by both hardship and extraordinary perseverance”.

The court heard Zahwa had contracted meningitis twice, first at age three when she became deaf, and again as a teenager.

Until sixth form, she attended a deaf school and became proficient in both sign language and lip reading.

Prosecutor Henrietta Paget KC said:

Zahwa never allowed her hearing difficulties to define her or hold her back. Towards the end of her final years in secondary school, she made the decision to integrate into a mainstream state school. Despite the challenges this posed for a deaf individual, she successfully communicated with her classmates, built friendships and never isolated herself. She developed bonds with many friends who were not deaf, proving that her disability did not confine her social life.

Zahwa was known for her constant smile, infectious laughter and the joy she brought to everyone around her. She always encouraged others to believe in themselves and celebrated even the smallest achievements of her friends and family, never letting anyone’s efforts feel insignificant. Her warmth, kindness and belief in the potential of others were qualities that left a lasting impression on all who knew her.

Known as “Zee” within east London’s Deaf community, Zahwa was a much-loved member of Hackney Deaf Club.

“She also spoke passionately about one day opening a school for deaf children, a place where they could be understood, supported and given opportunities just as she wished for others,” the court learned.

The statement continued:

I say this on behalf of our entire family, what happened to Zahwa took from us a daughter, sister, a granddaughter and a niece, and it took from this world a young woman who still had dreams to fulfill and lives to touch. Losing her has left an immeasurable void in our hearts.

What factors influenced Owusu’s sentencing?

A number of aggravating factors were taken into account when deciding Owusu’s minimum prison term, including Zahwa’s “vulnerability” as a deaf person.

Mr Borrelli said he “recognised” that as a young woman on her own, she was vulnerable.

However, he asked the judge to apply “great caution” in considering her disability as an aggravating factor for Owusu’s sentence. This was due to a lack of evidence that Owusu or the group knew Zahwa was deaf.

He said:

We respectfully submit that to leave Ms Mukhtar with a label of being a particularly vulnerable person would in fact be a disservice to her memory.

Mr Borrelli highlighted a written statement from an interpreter who had known Zahwa for about a year. It spoke of her “courage and determination to get on with life in an absolutely normal way”.

The statement also made reference to solo holidays Zahwa had taken to Morocco and Dubai, and how “infused” she’d been about those.

Mr Borrelli added:

It is absolutely plain that despite a hearing deficit that would limit so many people, Ms Mukhtar was somebody who was absolutely determined to get on and enjoy life.

Nonetheless, Judge Marks said Zahwa was “unquestionably vulnerable” due to being deaf although she was “fiercely independent”. He accepted Owusu was “unaware” of her disability.

Zahwa was a young, deaf woman out by herself

He also told Owusu that he must have known from Zahwa’s “erratic” behaviour that night and the drugs he saw her take with the others, that she was “out of it”. This would’ve “impacted her self-awareness as well as her ability to look after herself as a young woman out on her own late at night”.

Judge Marks also commented on how inebriated Owusu was too and how he may have “behaved with a greater degree of restraint” had he been more sober.

The Mercedes driver drove back towards Zahwa on two occasions — the first time against Owusu’s wishes — and he failed to properly check if Zahwa was “alright or to obtain any help for her whatsoever”.

He also considered Owusu’s previous convictions: an eight-year custodial sentence in 2010 for conspiracy to rob. Aged 20, he was the getaway driver in a robbery when Matalan store manager, Jamie Simpson, 33, in east London was killed.

There was a subsequent conviction for an offence involving the supply of class A drugs and a “fresh allegation” for a drug offence that Owusu was on bail for at the time of Zahwa’s murder.

Murder carries a mandatory life sentence for adults with a typical starting point of 15 years.

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