Two men have been convicted at the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court of murdering an innocent schoolboy in a case of mistaken identity during a gang war.
Michael Dosunmu, 15, was hit by four bullets, one fatally wounding him in the heart, that were fired by the two gunmen who had burst into his home in south London looking for his brother.
They had been fighting with his brother Hakeem Dosunmu over the proceeds from a series of robberies, prosecutors said.
Mohammed Sannoh, 19, and Abdi Omar Noor, 22, both from south London, were convicted today of murder and firearms offences after the jury deliberated for nine days.
The pair will be sentenced by Judge Stephen Kramer tomorrow. They face a mandatory life sentence.
During the trial, Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw told the court the shooting happened just before 1 am on February 6th last year, when the men forced their way into Dosunmu's house in Peckham.
"They went straight to the first floor and entered one of the three bedrooms," he said. "They turned the light on and opened fire with a Mac-10 submachine gun at a figure lying wrapped in a duvet. "It was a well planned and well executed execution. The victim had no chance of surviving."
Dosunmu's older brother was involved in drug dealing and had taken part in three successful raids on security vans, the court heard. Sannoh was part of the robbery team and he and other members believed that Hakeem had cheated them.
The jury heard that members of the robbery team believed that a cash box the gang's leader had said was empty was in fact full of cash.
One of them confronted the gang leader and was stabbed to death. The gang leader was arrested, leaving Hakeem as the target for the aggrieved robbery team, the court heard.
"Hakeem was the target on the night his brother was killed," Laidlaw said. "It was a revenge attack, or else Michael was killed deliberately to punish Hakeem. But it appears he was shot in error because of the money they believed they had been cheated out of and the murder of the other gang member."
The court was told that Hakeem Dosunmu was sentenced to two years jail in April for his part in the security van robberies. His sentence was reduced from five years.
Reuters