Failed Asylum Seeker Amo Akin Guilty Of Strangling Girlfriend Day After Hearing Of Deportation

Asylum Seeker Strangled Girlfriend Day After Deportation Decision

A failed asylum seeker who murdered his girlfriend the day after he was told he would be deported back to Iran has been jailed for 10.5 years.

Ako Amin, 19, was sentenced at the Old Bailey for strangling Cheryl Tariah on 7 February.

She came to visit him at the hostel where he was living in Barkingside, east London on the day of his hearing and the couple argued.

Amin, who was described as "controlling and jealous", then hit the college student on the neck with a hammer before strangling her.

He was arrested three days later hiding in the back of a lorry at Dover, trying to flee the country.

Amin was jailed for 10.5 years after pleading guilty to murder on Monday and told that he will be deported back to Iran on his release.

He met Cheryl via a social networking website and they had an on-off relationship that lasted for around a year.

Her friends said he tried to control her, repeatedly accused her of being unfaithful and even hacked into her Facebook and email accounts to change the passwords so that she could not send any messages.

Seventeen-year-old Cheryl was a student at Chelmsford College and lived in Chelmsford, Essex, with her mother and younger brother.

Sentencing him, Judge Richard Marks QC said: "You were possessive, controlling and jealous and you were obsessed about her infidelity, although there is no evidence at all to substantiate the belief that you expressed that she was seeing anybody else."

Judge Marks concluded that: "This was a shocking incident in which a young woman has lost her life and the consequences to Cheryl Tariah's mother can only be imagined.

"She lost her husband in 2010 and is left by herself to look after a severely autistic son. No doubt Cheryl would have been a great comfort and support to her in that task but she no longer has that comfort and support through your selfish and wicked behaviour."