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| Manchester Victoria station stabbings: Man admits attempted murder | Manchester Victoria station stabbings: Man admits attempted murder |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| A man who launched a frenzied knife attack at a railway station has admitted trying to kill three people, including a police officer. | |
| Mahdi Mohamud, 26, stabbed and slashed at a couple and then attacked Sgt Lee Valentine at Manchester Victoria railway station on New Year's Eve. | Mahdi Mohamud, 26, stabbed and slashed at a couple and then attacked Sgt Lee Valentine at Manchester Victoria railway station on New Year's Eve. |
| The couple's injuries included a punctured lung and a skull fracture. | |
| Mohamud pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court to three counts of attempted murder and a terror offence. | |
| He also admitted possession of a document or record likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism and will be sentenced later. | |
| The court heard Mohamud, of Cheetham Hill in Manchester, walked up behind a man and a woman in their 50s shouting "Allahu Akbar" and "Long live the Caliphate" as they headed for a tram platform shortly before 21:00 GMT on 31 December. | |
| He stabbed the man repeatedly in the back, shoulders and head and then slashed the woman across the face after the couple randomly crossed his path. | |
| British Transport Police officers and tram staff confronted Mohamud, who witnesses said was "like an animal" was "fixated" on stabbing and slashing. | |
| Sgt Valentine, 31, shot Mohamud with his Taser but the barbs got stuck in the knifeman's coat and failed to paralyse him. | |
| The sergeant was stabbed in the shoulder before the suspect was wrestled to the ground and arrested. | |
| Sgt Valentine said Mohamud was "dancing around, waving this knife around" before he started to run at the officers. | |
| "He probably closed a seven foot gap in half a second," he added. | |
| "It was just like a dive, he flew, he probably jumped three or four foot off the ground and just sort of lunged, probably lunged at my head with his knife." | |
| A second kitchen knife was found in Mohamud's waistband. | |
| The defendant, a Dutch national from a Somali family, had arrived in the UK aged nine and became radicalised online, Greater Manchester Police said. |