- 5/22/2025
Killer at the Crime Scene - Season 4 Episode 4 -
Mohammed Saleem
#CinemaJourney
Mohammed Saleem
#CinemaJourney
Category
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Short filmTranscript
00:00I was a horrible violent attack on an elderly male.
00:09He was lying there bleeding, he'd been stabbed.
00:13The nature of the stabbing is brutal.
00:16The perpetrator appears to be somebody who really wanted to kill.
00:24Last thing that people would ever think would happen, all of a sudden people are fearful
00:28of their lives.
00:31Our role is to recover the evidence, we're collectors of evidence, but sometimes the
00:36evidence just isn't there to prove who's attacked and murdered this gentleman.
00:42This was a real critical incident.
00:44I think it's fair to say we're all worried because it was escalating, the threat was
00:48increasing.
00:49We felt under a lot of pressure to catch this person.
00:52There's a lot of work going on in the background trying to find that evidence before it's
00:57too late, because the offender might strike again.
01:27A call came in late in the evening about a man who'd been attacked in the street.
01:46This was clearly a very, very violent attack.
01:50The priority at a crime scene such as this, first of all, who is the person?
01:55That's important for us to try and identify who they are.
01:57But then it's about gathering the best evidence, and we just want to catch the person before
02:02anything else happens.
02:06Residents identify the man as 82-year-old Mohamed Salim.
02:11Paramedics find he has lost a lot of blood and waste no time blue-lighting him to hospital
02:16as CSIs enter the scene.
02:24I've been to a number of scenes like this where literally you attend the site where
02:28an incident's happened and there's nothing there bar blood.
02:32Detectives turn to the CSIs to understand what happened to Mohamed and what could have
02:38driven the attacker to use such violence.
02:42Distribution of blood at a crime scene can be really important because it helps to build
02:46a story and build a pattern as to what exactly's happened.
02:49There was a small blood trail leading to potentially where he'd first been attacked
02:55and then collapsed.
02:56The blood spatter indicates Mohamed was ambushed.
03:01Police go door to door while CSIs search through the cordon.
03:06When you have an outdoor scene, there's lots of considerations to think about.
03:09Firstly, it's the weather.
03:11Secondly, it's trying to preserve that outdoor scene.
03:14Thirdly, it's going to be how difficult it is to search for evidence in the dark.
03:19It's late at night, but in the morning, you've got members of the public, they'll all be
03:22wanting to go to work and there'll be a lot of traffic on the road.
03:26So time is of the essence on a scene like this.
03:33Before Mohamed reaches hospital, he is pronounced dead from his injuries.
03:41Detectives inform his family.
03:42I saw firsthand Mrs. Salim's family and the grief they had.
03:46You know, we're all human and we all have relatives.
03:51He was husband, dad, granddad.
03:54Heartbreaking, I can't imagine what it was like.
03:57It wasn't just a loss to the family.
04:00We lost a very vital part of the community.
04:06Uncle Salim was a lovely man.
04:08Big family, a lot of grandchildren.
04:11He had a very good sense of humour.
04:14He was one of the elders that you would always see whenever you came into the mosque.
04:19He would be from the first people to come in, prayed on a chair and with a walking stick.
04:25He was one of the last people to leave.
04:27So he became like a pillar of this mosque and really had an impact, I must say.
04:34He was well respected and loved, well thought of.
04:37That had the biggest impact on me.
04:39So this really does stick out in my mind.
04:42But as detectives, we have to keep focused.
04:44So we started a murder investigation.
04:50He had three stab wounds which appeared really deep
04:53and it caused really catastrophic injuries,
04:57which tends to suggest that this was quite a quick, frenzied attack
05:00and there was very little contact between the two.
05:04It's really important to try and work out where the victim has been stabbed,
05:08how many times he's been stabbed, what he's been stabbed with.
05:11When the incident happens very quickly, the murder won't leave much trace.
05:15There will always be some kind of trace, but it might be that minute.
05:18It's very difficult to find.
05:20The most important thing is obviously to try and find the weapon.
05:23So not only can you tie it to the victim from blood,
05:26but you can also potentially tie it back to the offender.
05:30As CSIs focus their search, officers need to trace Mohamed's last movements.
05:39He went to prayers every day.
05:43He was on his way home from evening prayer at the time he was attacked.
05:48We normally have a very large congregation coming in for the prayer.
05:53And when he then left the mosque, there were still people around.
05:58And so they were the first ones to actually hear the commotion
06:03and then come up to him and try to help him as much as possible.
06:07He only lived a couple of minutes away.
06:11And he's done this journey of going back and forth from his house to the mosque
06:15at least 10 times in a day.
06:18For something like that to happen in a matter of seconds, really shocking.
06:23Mohamed was less than 300 metres from home.
06:27Detectives speculate why someone would attack such a vulnerable man.
06:31At the time, there was no obvious motive.
06:34He still had his wallet with him, so it didn't look like it was a robbery.
06:39This attack makes no sense to anyone.
06:42Here we have an elderly man who's walking home using a stick
06:47and they've been attacked with force, brutal force.
06:52There's just no explanation.
06:57One of the things we do in an investigation like this,
06:59we look at have there been any similar crimes in the local area.
07:03We look at have there been knife crime, etc.
07:06Again, there was nothing there,
07:08so there's nothing that would give us a motive for this tragic crime.
07:13With no forensic traces found at the crime scene,
07:16detectives need a breakthrough.
07:18Police investigations rely heavily on forensic evidence
07:22and sometimes that evidence just isn't there.
07:25At a scene like this, where it's been such a violent attack,
07:27that must have been a very difficult conversation.
07:30The crime scene manager has to effectively say,
07:33we haven't got much evidence.
07:34We've got blood and not much else.
07:42This is clearly a very violent attack on Mr Salim.
07:45Obviously with his age, a very vulnerable man.
07:47It's really important to identify the person who's done this
07:50because if they've done this to Mr Salim,
07:52could they do this to somebody else?
07:53We'll be looking for witnesses,
07:55so we'll be doing what's called house to house.
07:57Anyone seeing actual incidents or heard something,
08:01we'll also be looking for CCTV.
08:05Looking around at the cameras there,
08:07the cameras covering the way to and from that scene.
08:10It's really important for us to find out who's done it
08:14and arrest them as quickly as we can.
08:27SIREN WAILS
08:3282-year-old grandfather, Mohammed Salim,
08:35has been stabbed and murdered while walking home.
08:40With no forensic traces at the scene,
08:43the major crime unit looked to the post-mortem
08:46for any intelligence on the murder weapon.
08:50Looking at the victim's three stab wounds
08:53would give you a potential indication
08:55of what kind of weapon might have been used.
08:57And it was indicated that it was a large hunting knife
09:00that had been used to kill Mr Salim.
09:03He had no defence injuries on his arms
09:05or any injuries on the front of his body,
09:07which immediately infers that he wasn't facing his attacker.
09:11He was either running away or walking away from somebody,
09:14and he's been attacked from behind.
09:18This tells me that there is somebody here
09:21who targeted this elderly gentleman
09:24and, for some reason, had a real hatred towards him.
09:29They are driven purely by an emotion
09:33that we need to understand.
09:36The police need to explore all the possible leads
09:39and all possible motivations for the attack.
09:45As searches for the weapon continue,
09:47detectives request CCTV footage from over 60 cameras.
09:52The whole idea of examining CCTV
09:54is not just to try and find the offence itself,
09:57but also to backtrack and forward track
10:00what's happened before the offence and after.
10:02We need to try and find the route that the offender's taken,
10:05not just into the scene, but also away from the scene.
10:09The digital forensic team uncovers a potential lead.
10:13As part of that CCTV trawl,
10:15we did find an image of a male running away,
10:18quite a few roads away from the scene.
10:22Were they running from the scene of a murder
10:24or were they running from something else?
10:27We needed to trace that person.
10:29Had they seen something or were they involved?
10:37The footage is analysed frame by frame.
10:40Officers try to identify who that person is,
10:43but it wasn't a very good image.
10:45It just wasn't good enough to identify the person from it.
10:48But they're looking for other CCTV
10:50to see if they could find them elsewhere in the area.
10:58The grainy CCTV is released to the press.
11:03The effect ripples through the community.
11:06Small Heath is a very close-knit, mainly Muslim community.
11:11Lots of families all know each other.
11:13Lots of people have worshipped at the mosque.
11:15So, certainly, it was a tremendous shock
11:18for people living in that road and that surrounding area.
11:22It's a very nice area to live in.
11:24Beautiful vibe, I'd like to describe it as.
11:29I've been around this area for about 20 years now.
11:32So, I'm quite fond of it.
11:34It's very multicultural.
11:35It's the last area where we thought we would feel unsafe.
11:38We have elderly and vulnerable people,
11:41just like Uncle Salim,
11:42leaving their house quite late at night for the prayer
11:46or very early in the morning for the morning prayers.
11:49So, for something to happen here
11:51caused that level of fear and confusion.
11:57There are growing concerns about the security of the area.
12:01There are growing concerns
12:02that Mohammed was deliberately targeted
12:05and the community is under attack.
12:10The Mr Salim case,
12:11where we know that it's a Muslim with a visible identity,
12:14he's left his prayers, he's going home and he's targeted.
12:19And, therefore, most people believe
12:21that Mohammed Salim was not a spontaneous attack.
12:23It was a premeditated, planned attack.
12:27It's a hate crime, ultimately.
12:29The climate at the time was very hostile and Islamophobic.
12:34There was a rise in Islamophobic attacks.
12:37A lot of these sporadic attacks started to happen
12:40where ladies would have their heads cut off,
12:43would be intimidated, would be verbally abused.
12:48It's a very difficult period
12:50where now you have to reassure even those who are vulnerable
12:54and try to make them comfortable and secure and safe.
12:59There was a real sense of sadness,
13:01a real sense of fear.
13:03Visiting the mosque and other places,
13:05there was a sense of working together and unifying together
13:08and actually being careful about your safety.
13:12The major crime unit tries to alleviate the community's fears,
13:17while CSIs continue to search for any trace of Mohammed's killer.
13:22At a scene like this, where it's been such a violent attack,
13:25there's pressure to find the evidence,
13:27but sometimes the evidence just isn't there.
13:30And it's very difficult sometimes
13:32to convey that to the investigations team and the SIO.
13:37We effectively can't produce the goods,
13:39we can't produce the evidence to prove or disprove
13:42who's attacked and murdered this gentleman.
13:46We're hoping that there's further evidence
13:48or further intelligence that comes to light
13:50which might then reignite investigations into the crime.
13:55We very much kept an open mind.
13:57It was still a horrendous crime,
13:58we just wanted to catch the person before anything else happened.
14:04Then, a call comes in that changes the course of the investigation.
14:12There was a bang that evening.
14:15It was close to the Aisha Mosque in Walsall.
14:18There were some railings by the side of the mosque.
14:21People who lived close by saw a child lunchbox
14:24which was in lots of pieces,
14:25but there were elements of what we now know as a bomb.
14:32At that time, I think it's fair to say we were all worried.
14:35A decision was made that the cancer terrorism unit would investigate that.
14:39150 people were moved from their homes
14:41and helped by the local authority,
14:43as the bomb squad was called and the area cordoned off.
14:48Fortunately, no one is harmed.
14:51The counter-terrorism unit arrive at the scene
14:53and CSIs enter the cordon.
14:57An explosion is a completely different type of crime scene.
15:00It's really important to try and ascertain what caused the explosions.
15:04Getting any forensic evidence from this device
15:07is crucial to that investigation.
15:09It needs to be done methodically but quickly.
15:13So try and ascertain who's put the device together.
15:16Finding the component parts of a device
15:18can help detectives do further research
15:21into where those parts come from
15:24to then try and identify who's purchased these items.
15:28There are specialist forensic labs that deal with explosives.
15:31So the FEL lab, which is the Forensic Explosive Lab,
15:34that deals specifically with incendiary devices and bombs.
15:39So that lab is the lab that's used to investigate
15:42and to effectively put the device back together
15:45and work out what the component parts are of the device.
15:49The remnants of the bomb are sent to the FEL for analysis.
15:55An IED is an improvised explosive device.
15:58And simply, it is an explosive device that is made by an individual
16:03or individuals normally in a domestic premises
16:06or outside of a professional setting.
16:08The material that was used in this particular case
16:10is what we call a peroxide explosive.
16:12In terms of its explosive power,
16:14it has an explosive power of about three quarters that of TNT.
16:20So it's quite a substantial charge.
16:23But the bomber made a life-saving mistake.
16:27The device in the incident here only partially went off.
16:31You didn't get a full involvement of all the charge that was in there.
16:35The person who made the device hasn't been particularly good
16:38at making the chemicals that you need
16:40to cause the charge to detonate, essentially.
16:44The person who set it hadn't got it quite right.
16:47Thankfully, the consequences could have been horrendous.
16:52The community would be absolutely frightened.
16:55At this point, they would know that they're being targeted.
16:58There is somebody out there
17:00who have a clear hostility and prejudice towards them.
17:05The police need to contain the fear and the anxiety of the community
17:10whilst also being very focused on their investigation.
17:16Forensics look for traces of the offender
17:18on the lunchbox that housed the bomb.
17:26Normally, explosive devices don't cause fires.
17:29They normally just explode.
17:31Therefore, the potential for being able to find fingerprints and DNA
17:35on the component parts of the device is quite high.
17:38First thing to do on an exhibit like this would be to swab for DNA.
17:42Use a pointy swab,
17:43because the pointy swab gets into all the nooks and crannies and the grooves.
17:46I'm going to swab the zips.
17:48What you're trying to do is find out who may have handled this.
17:52The outside surface of this lunchbox is fabric,
17:55so it's very difficult to get any fingerprints from there.
17:58Potentially fingerprints from the inside.
18:00The powder that I'm going to use is black magnetic.
18:07And then just slowly use the powder
18:10to see if you can develop any fingerprints.
18:13I'm just running the powder over the surface
18:15to see if there's any marks.
18:17But there's no fingerprints on the inside of this section here.
18:23The perpetrator appears to have been careful to leave no trace.
18:30The digital forensic team scours all CCTV opportunities.
18:34Our CCTV trawl has to start where the bomb was left.
18:37So we started to look at everyone who'd walked into that scene
18:41within the hours before the bomb went off
18:43and walked out at that time.
18:48And eventually we did identify a male.
18:51He walked in with a bag and walked out without the bag.
18:54And the bag looked like this.
18:56It was a black plastic bag.
18:58It was a black plastic bag.
19:00He walked in with a bag and walked out without the bag.
19:03And the bag looked very much the size of our bomb.
19:10So that was our starting point.
19:12And our starting point then goes to what we call tracking.
19:15And when he left the scene, we look at which way did he go.
19:19I call it a foot chase by CCTV.
19:26Did he go down that road?
19:28The camera, he went on the road.
19:30Every time a car goes past, the danger is has he got in a car or not?
19:35The digital team trawls through hours of CCTV in search of the bomber.
19:42In Small Heath, police speak to locals for any leads to Mohammed's killer.
19:48Then another terrifying event hits the West Midlands.
19:53Exactly three weeks after the Walsall explosion,
19:58a second mosque is targeted.
20:01When that bomb went off, the size of the explosion,
20:04it sent shrapnel quite a distance, right across roads,
20:07broke windows, embedded itself in trees.
20:09Thankfully, nobody was injured.
20:11Had anyone been in the way of any of that shrapnel,
20:14they would have been severely injured, if not worse.
20:16It was happening on a Friday. It was during Ramadan.
20:20This was declared as a terrorist incident
20:22because it looked like a direct attack on a mosque.
20:27This bomb was set to go off 10 minutes before Friday prayers were taking place.
20:33Now, Friday is an important day for the Islamic religion.
20:38And this bomb maker knew that there would be
20:41a large number of people gathering to pray at this time.
20:45So this person was intent on causing maximum impact,
20:49targeting the Islamic population.
20:53Thankfully, because it was during Ramadan,
20:55the times of prayers had changed.
20:57Otherwise, it would have been full of people walking to and from the mosque.
21:01There would have been people in the streets outside.
21:03There would have been a number of casualties.
21:08This event escalated it to a different level.
21:11Of course, Fridays for us is a special day.
21:13I always compare it to Sunday for the Christians and Saturday for the Jews.
21:18It's our special day.
21:19So we have a very large congregational prayer on Fridays.
21:24And for us not to feel safe on that day,
21:27it's a very sad thing, to be honest.
21:30Because for someone to do something to such a large gathering of people
21:34on their holy day, on their special day,
21:37it takes a certain level of hate
21:40to then commit a crime like that.
21:44The bomb attacks against the mosques had a similar flavor,
21:48but their violent tendencies have moved forward
21:51because they're not apprehended by the police.
21:54Maybe that gives them this willpower,
21:56this kind of idea, empowerment,
21:58that I can go out and do something more damaging.
22:02And this could be them planning and plotting these bombs
22:05so that he can maim and kill more Muslims.
22:08Looking at the days, two bombs were then gone off on a Friday.
22:12So our concern was, was another bomb going to go off the following Friday?
22:16So this was a real critical incident.
22:19Following the bomber's MO,
22:22the counter-terrorism team fears the next bomb will be even more powerful
22:27and could be fatal.
22:31We've got a bomber operating in this area.
22:35We need to find out who they are before it's too late.
22:42The West Midlands Major Crime Unit are searching for the killer
22:46of grandfather and community figure, Mohammed Salim.
22:51It was a shock,
22:53because it was the last thing that people would ever think would happen.
22:56Who in his right mind would attack an 82-year-old vulnerable man
22:59walking with a walking stick?
23:01He was a very lovely person,
23:03very strong family-orientated as well.
23:05So yeah, it had a very strong impact.
23:07Counter-terrorism have deployed a team of CSIs
23:10to the scene of a second bomb attack outside a mosque
23:13in the West Midlands.
23:19When an explosion happens, there's a huge amount of destruction.
23:23There's a lot of debris that can be thrown from quite a huge area.
23:28It's paramount to try and recover them as quickly as possible.
23:31So the cordons for the area have to be set a lot wider,
23:34and the search teams have to search a lot more in the surrounding areas,
23:38looking for parts of the device
23:40or anything that might have been damaged by that device.
23:45All the vital bits of shrapnel and evidence that's come out of that bomb
23:49is recovered, because it's really important to check
23:52if there's any unique markings,
23:54because if there are any,
23:56it's really important to make sure
23:58because it's really important to check if there's any unique markings
24:01on any of the nuts and bolts or screws within the device.
24:05Therefore, you might be able to find out
24:07where those were made and sold,
24:09because that might tell you who your offender is.
24:13From the radius of destruction,
24:15it's clear that this is a much more powerful device
24:18than the Walsall bomb.
24:22The second device, essentially you're dealing with
24:24at least half a kilogram of equivalent TNT.
24:28By the very virtue of the fact that they're adding
24:30additional shrapnel to a device,
24:32that indicates that you have an intention
24:34to cause harm or loss of life.
24:38People that do this sort of thing,
24:40where they're making explosives,
24:42almost similar to serial arsonists,
24:44in terms of they tend to get better at what they do
24:47the more they do it.
24:49The first or second device may or may not work so well,
24:51and then as you go through the process,
24:53they get better at making the chemicals,
24:55they get better at setting the device off.
24:57They're driven to improve and get better
24:59because they're essentially practicing.
25:02This is somebody who is intent on causing harm and fear.
25:09They are starting to build a bit more confidence
25:13at every stage, trying to make it bigger and more harmful.
25:17It is a real concern.
25:19With the bombings just three weeks apart,
25:22the counter-terrorism team believe they have
25:24just six days left before the next attack.
25:27They must determine which of the 200 mosques
25:30in the West Midlands will be targeted next.
25:36We recognised that it was a real threat
25:38to the Muslim community.
25:40We felt under a lot of pressure to catch this person.
25:42We were just really concerned,
25:44another incident, someone else could lose their lives.
25:47Within West Midlands Police, we had officers
25:49working around the clock.
25:50The whole force was working 12-hour shifts
25:52because we had to protect our Muslim community
25:55from any more attacks.
25:57The team's strongest lead is the grainy figure
25:59seen on CCTV at the Walsall crime scene.
26:04Searching through hundreds of hours of footage
26:06across the region,
26:09digital experts trace his movements.
26:13When he left the scene, we tracked him all the way
26:15across Walsall into Walsall bus station
26:18and got a bus into Birmingham.
26:23He was very CCTV aware.
26:25He had a cap on.
26:26It makes it more difficult.
26:31We see him get off a bus in Birmingham.
26:35He walks past the bullring, quite distinctive there.
26:38And then, really coolly, he goes into a shop
26:41and buys a bottle of wine.
26:43So we're looking at the CCTV in the shop,
26:45trying to see a facial image.
26:46But he's really careful,
26:48had his head down all the time,
26:49as if he was really conscious of this.
26:52And then we tracked him out of the shop
26:54and he gets onto another bus.
26:57We then track that bus
26:59and he gets off in Small Heath.
27:09The bus stop is just metres away
27:11from where Mohammed Salim was murdered.
27:14This is a real turning point for the investigation.
27:17Our working hypothesis was
27:19he lived somewhere in the Small Heath area.
27:22So what we then thought is,
27:24let's try and find him going out.
27:26He might not have been as careful.
27:28We tracked a lot of buses going out from Small Heath
27:31to Birmingham and then to Walsall
27:33earlier on that day, on the 21st of June.
27:40So by looking through those images,
27:42we eventually found that person
27:45and we found a full facial image of him.
27:48And this was a real breakthrough moment for us.
27:51We saw he was carrying a bag.
27:54Police believe the bag is housing the Walsall bomb,
27:58putting everyone on the bus in danger.
28:03The peroxide explosive HMTD has a very high shock sensitivity
28:07and a very high friction sensitivity as well.
28:09So you can initiate it with friction or shock quite easily.
28:13So it can easily be set off unintentionally
28:15if you're transporting it.
28:16So carrying it around in a bus,
28:18if you drop whatever it is you've got in your hand,
28:20it's the potential with these sorts of explosives
28:22that they may detonate.
28:26We know how easily that could have been detonated.
28:29So on a full capacity bus,
28:31the consequences would have been horrific.
28:35The suspect is taking all the risks
28:38that they need to cause maximum damage.
28:42Detective Superintendent Sean Edwards
28:45wastes no time prioritising the bag as his next lead.
28:51We saw the bag came from a local superstore.
28:54As detectives, we went to that supermarket
28:56and got CCTV for that day.
29:02And found him in the store on that day,
29:05coming out of the shop with the bag
29:07that he was subsequently carrying to Walsall.
29:09So now we had two clear facial images.
29:12It was really imperative to try and identify this person.
29:16We strongly believe that was our bomber.
29:19With just three days to go before the next suspected bomb attack,
29:23the CCTV images are circulated around the West Midlands.
29:28We put a lot of officers in the area
29:30with his photograph, trying to find him.
29:32And then we circulated his photograph to the media
29:35asking who knows this person.
29:45Really surprisingly, we didn't get any calls at all.
29:48No-one named him.
29:52Detectives put all resources on the ground in Smallheath.
29:57We targeted that area by old-fashioned detective work.
30:00We had so many officers on there, working twice a day.
30:03We had so many officers on there, working 12 hours a day because of this threat.
30:07There were two local neighbourhood officers
30:09who knew the community in Smallheath.
30:11We went into this industrial area
30:14and showed these images, do you know this person?
30:17And one of the receptionists said,
30:19yeah, that's one of the foreign students who is staying here.
30:23Just one day before the next feared bomb attack,
30:27the suspect is named as Pavlo Lapshin.
30:31He was from Ukraine.
30:33He'd been in the country a few weeks.
30:35He was living in an adapted warehouse as part of an exchange programme,
30:39which is why he wasn't known and why we didn't get any calls about him.
30:42They called on the radio that he was there and they went to arrest him.
30:48He did struggle with them, but he was quickly restrained and arrested.
30:52A search warrant is secured for his accommodation.
30:58The home address of the suspect was a flat above the factory,
31:01so that crime scene then becomes a huge crime scene
31:05that needs a lot of attention.
31:08You're entering a completely unknown area or unknown scene
31:11with materials or risks that again are unknown.
31:15Obviously going into anything like that is going to be inherently dangerous
31:18because you simply don't know what you're dealing with when you walk in.
31:22The factory had to be evacuated.
31:24The neighbouring houses would need to be evacuated.
31:26You're going to have to send police officers into that scene,
31:29but there's the risk of more devices.
31:32There's the risk of risk to human life of the members of the public.
31:36Is the address booby-trapped?
31:38It needs a lot of specialists attending
31:40and it needs to be a very controlled and methodical examination
31:44without risk to anybody's life.
31:48As soon as the area is evacuated,
31:50specialist search teams enter his flat.
31:55When we searched his home, it was quite chilling.
31:58We found several of the bombs.
32:00The bombs he was making seemed to increase in power.
32:03There were a number ready to go with other components,
32:06so mobile phones, chemicals,
32:08and he started putting those together quite a sophisticated way.
32:11He obviously knew how to put bombs together.
32:14That told us he was planning a campaign.
32:17And what we feared, that he was planning a campaign,
32:20would have come true had he not been caught.
32:25When a house search is conducted,
32:27not only do you have to recover the component parts of the device,
32:30but also he's been seen on CCTV wearing clothing.
32:35It's really important to search the property for that clothing
32:38because forensic tests need to be done on that clothing.
32:42Is there anything that will be able to confirm
32:44what we've got at the crime scene?
32:48Clothing matching those seen on CCTV is fast-tracked to the lab.
32:55I'm going to put my needle in the bag
32:57and suck out a portion of air.
33:00The initial investigation would be to examine
33:03if there's any contaminants,
33:05so if there's any chemical that can be detected on the air
33:08in the bag above the exhibit.
33:10You're looking for any accelerants or volatile liquids
33:13that have seeped off the exhibit within the bag
33:15that might link back to the explosion.
33:18Then you place this into a knife tube.
33:24Secure it in an exhibit bag.
33:27These knife tubes have metal ends
33:29to prevent any movement of the exhibit and any damage.
33:36I'm going to pop the bag open and get the item out.
33:46I'm going to minitape the inside.
33:48Remove the surface of this tape.
33:51It reveals the sticky side to it.
33:54And then you would minitape the area where,
33:56either around the waistband or inside of the pockets,
33:59where you're most likely to get wearer's DNA.
34:03And you just pop the minitape once it's done back into the pot.
34:07CSI's recover all of Lapshin's personal devices.
34:12We would look at any digital evidence,
34:14so mobile phones, computers,
34:16they would be seized and downloaded by digital forensics teams
34:20so that we can ascertain exactly what searches he's been doing.
34:25We would look at all of Lapshin's personal devices,
34:28so mobile phones, computers,
34:30they would be seized and downloaded by digital forensics teams
34:33so that we can ascertain exactly what searches he's been doing.
34:36The digital forensics teams are incredible.
34:38They can recover a lot of evidence from a digital device,
34:41even if it looks like it's been deleted.
34:45They prioritise his laptop.
34:48By looking at that, we found quite a wealth of evidence against him.
34:52On there, he'd been searching himself.
34:55The moths that he targeted, he'd done a Google search of those.
34:59He'd looked at how to get to and from them,
35:02so we could see that it had been meticulously planned.
35:06Among Lapshin's files, investigators make a disturbing discovery.
35:11Chillingly, he'd also searched details on the murder of Mohammed Saleem.
35:16And in there, we found a photograph of him holding a knife,
35:20which the pathologist said that is the type of knife
35:23that would have caused those injuries.
35:25So we believe this was a knife that killed Mohammed Saleem.
35:32And this, for us, was quite a remarkable moment,
35:34because we could see that clearly he would be the main suspect
35:37for both the murder and the bombings.
35:41THE KILLER
35:57Police have arrested Pavlo Lapshin
36:00for two bomb attacks outside mosques in the West Midlands.
36:04And now, evidence points to him also being the killer
36:08of 82-year-old Mohammed Saleem.
36:34I did not know that person.
36:42A murder was committed on the basis of racial hatred.
36:51I used a knife, I stabbed him three times.
36:57When we interviewed Pavlo Lapshin to an interpreter,
37:00he admitted what he'd done.
37:02He was very proud of what he'd done.
37:05And when we asked why he'd done it, he said,
37:07because he's not white and I am white,
37:09I wanted to increase racial conflict.
37:12So a real chilling motive for the murder of Mohammed Saleem.
37:17We were all monitoring the interview.
37:19He said to us, yeah, I set all three bombs off.
37:23And that was news to us, because we only knew the two.
37:27When we asked him about the other one,
37:29he told us it was one in Wolverhampton.
37:31He gave us details of it.
37:33He said it was a roundabout by the mosque in Wolverhampton
37:35that hadn't been reported to the police previously.
37:38We sent officers to the scene, looked at the roundabout
37:41and found fragments of a small explosion that had gone off there.
37:45The discovery of fragments of a device on this roundabout
37:48opposite the mosque showed there'd been an explosion there
37:51several weeks ago, the third time a Muslim place of prayer
37:55had been targeted in the last month.
37:58Those two crimes, in terms of MO, as it were,
38:02might be different, but the motivation behind them
38:05is exactly the same, it's just pure racism.
38:09Lafshin actually says that he wants a race war.
38:13This was all about biological superiority,
38:16this idea that people of colour were inferior to people who were white.
38:20We wanted to be part of this idea of him being a soldier,
38:24fighting for this greater cause against the Muslim invaders.
38:29As a soldier, Lafshin can justify his actions
38:32because he legitimises their victims.
38:37On 22 July, Pavlo Lafshin is charged
38:41with the terrorist-related murder of Mohammed Salim.
38:45Having the knife would have been the icing on the cake.
38:48However, he'd already admitted it, he'd told us things that he didn't,
38:52that only the murderer would know.
38:54We have pictures of him holding a knife, which the pathologist said
38:57that is the type of knife that would have caused those injuries.
39:00So we were very confident of the evidence we had.
39:03Even though the offender's admitted the crime,
39:06at any stage he might turn up in court and then say,
39:09oh, I'm not guilty, and therefore we have to prepare a case
39:13to be able to still prove, beyond reasonable doubt,
39:15that this is our offender and this is what he's done.
39:18We didn't know whether he would want to have his day in court
39:22to espouse his ideology, so that was our concern,
39:25and we planned for a trial.
39:27We wanted to clearly show this was a racist, a terrorist,
39:31intent on causing fear amongst the Muslim community
39:35and actually murdered Mr Salim.
39:37So I sent staff out to Ukraine to liaise with the Ukrainian authorities
39:40just to understand more about Pavlo Lafshin.
39:48What we found was a young man who'd been in university,
39:51had done very well at university, so much so he'd got an exchange programme
39:55to come to the UK.
39:57We know when we speak to local police that he'd been trying,
40:00setting off bombs in Ukraine, just to test and experiment.
40:03He'd been dealt with for what they termed as a health and safety incident,
40:07where he'd actually blown his kitchen up in his house.
40:10He obviously knew how to put bombs together.
40:13When we looked at his laptop, there were photos of quite large explosions
40:17that we found out were in Ukraine.
40:19These were bombs he'd set off.
40:30But in the UK, he wasn't as successful.
40:34I think part of the issue was his English wasn't brilliant,
40:37so translating the chemicals he had in Ukraine to the chemicals in the UK
40:42may have accounted for him not going off quite right,
40:45because he was obviously honing his skills, honing his English,
40:48his chemistry knowledge.
40:50Detectives work with Ukrainian authorities to establish
40:53if Lafshin was part of any terrorist groups.
40:57It's also really important to see if there's any other offenders.
41:00Has he been working alone or are there other people within his network?
41:05And if so, they need to be identified and arrested.
41:09Police are finding a lot of literature around online radicalisation.
41:13They find lots of white supremacist memorabilia.
41:16He's searching white supremacist websites.
41:20He uses that as an inspiration.
41:22He's radicalising himself, and this is why people call him a lone wolf.
41:27We were very confident nobody else was involved.
41:29We were very confident he was what we call a self-initiated terrorist.
41:32He wasn't directed by anybody else.
41:35But I think he thought he may be much cleverer than us.
41:38He took great steps. He was very forensically aware.
41:41He never took a mobile phone with him because he knew we'd use that.
41:44Equally, with both the murder and the bombings,
41:48he washed everything in high-strength vodka
41:51because he thought that would get rid of most of the forensic traces.
41:55He did think he got away with it, as it were, and was planning on carrying on.
42:00Lafshin's search history reveals that before moving to the UK,
42:04he was researching where he could buy explosive chemicals.
42:09Just two days after moving to Smallheath, he brought a large hunting knife,
42:16which matches the fatal injuries inflicted on Mohammed Salim.
42:21The police can see search histories related to two years ago, what he's planning.
42:25So when he comes to the UK, he finds a victim,
42:29unfortunately in this case Mohammed Salim,
42:31and then he's motivated to commit the act of violence.
42:34So although it only takes him days to commit this act of terrorism,
42:37in fact he's been planning this over a very long time before.
42:41Even though in both of these crime scenes,
42:43there wasn't much physical traditional forensic evidence,
42:46fingerprints, DNA, footprints, tyre marks,
42:50there's always digital evidence.
42:56At trial, Lafshin pleads guilty to the three bombings
43:02and to the racially motivated murder of Mohammed Salim.
43:10He is sentenced to life with a minimum of 40 years.
43:16The evidence we had was overwhelming.
43:20But he showed no remorse for this.
43:23An elderly man who was well respected and loved,
43:26taken away for a horrible, racist motive.
43:29The tragic death of Mr Salim had a huge impact.
43:32The murder teaches us lots of different lessons,
43:35and part of those is trying to come together as a community, as one.
43:39We need to unite when it comes to incidents like this.
43:42Terrorism tries to create a psychological fear,
43:45and we need to show that as a community, as a group, we're not afraid,
43:49and that you don't have to be Muslim to be impacted by Islamophobia.
43:52It's a hate crime ultimately, and a hate crime has no place in any society.
43:59At the end of a case like that, from a policing perspective,
44:02it is a satisfaction to see a dangerous terrorist go to prison
44:06for the rest of his life and keep people safe.
44:08That's why we joined the police service.
44:10But part of that, you take away with you the family,
44:14and I can't imagine the grief and loss that Mr Salim's family went through.
44:19Uncle Salim always had that very contagious smile.
44:24He'd always be open to speak to people and give advice.
44:29He's a very lovely man, a very respectable man, and very respected as well.
44:59For more UN videos visit www.un.org
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