Knifeman stabbed cousin six times in random attack outside his home

A knifeman who stabbed his cousin six times and shouted “Allahu Akbar” has been handed a hospital order.

Rafi Raoufi, 31, knocked on the front door of his cousin’s maisonette in Manchester on April 4 2020, when he was sitting down to eat with his brother and a friend. They had not seen each other for a while but ‘always got on well’.

Despite his cousin inviting him inside, Raoufi, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, asked him to go outside. His cousin asked how he was and what he had been up to but got no reply, Manchester Crown Court heard.

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“He was then stabbed by the defendant, suddenly, and without warning,” Kathryn Johnson, prosecuting, said. “He was stabbed six times to his body.

“He heard the defendant shouting: 'Allahu Akbar' over and over again whilst being stabbed. This made him fear for his life.”

The victim fell to the floor in pain and said he could feel blood ‘coming from his stomach’ as he saw Raoufi run away. Both the brother and the friend who had been inside the maisonette at the time came outside as they became concerned.

One of the men saw Raoufi holding the victim and that he had a knife in his hand. He went to take the knife off him, during which the blade snapped off and he disarmed him.

He tried to detain Raoufi, but he managed to push the gate of the duplex open and run off. The victim's brother armed himself with a metal weight’s bar to protect himself and chased after Raoufi.

“When the group caught up with the defendant, the brother described the defendant as trying to punch him and so he hit him with the bar, fearing what would happen if he did not stop the