Attempt to run down three males on bikes was robbery revenge attack, murder jury told

16-year-old Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Taleb was "tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time” when he was hit by a grey Audi car after it mounted a pavement on Staniforth Road in Darnall.

The intended target was not Abdullah, who arrived in the country just weeks earlier after fleeing war-torn Yemen, but three males riding on e-bikes and a moped, prosecutors allege.

The Audi is alleged to have missed the first rider, before hitting the second rider - an 18-year-old male named La’Rome Divers - and finally hitting Abdullah as he walked along the pavement.

The other two riders have not yet been identified.

Abdullah suffered catastrophic injuries, and despite the best efforts of the medics both at the scene and in hospital, he could not be saved and died a short time after the collision on June 4, 2025.

Mr Divers suffered extensive injuries, for which he underwent surgery.

Police subsequently charged three men - brothers Zulkernain Ahmed, aged 20, and Armaan Ahmed, 27, both of Locke Drive, Darnall along with 30-year-old Adam Mohammed, of Acres Hill Road, Darnall - with the murder of Abdullah, as well as charges related to three others the defendants are alleged to have been aiming for.

Zulkernain Ahmed is alleged to have been the driver of the Audi, while Armaan Ahmed and Adam Mohammed are said to have been back seat passengers. The Ahmed brothers are alleged to have armed themselves with a stick and baseball bat prior to the collision taking place.

The three defendants deny the charges against them and have today (Tuesday, January 13, 2026) gone on trial at Sheffield Crown Court.

Outlining the defendants’ possible motive for the collision, Alistair MacDonald KC, prosecuting, read jurors a prepared statement, drafted by a solicitor and provided to police, on behalf of Zulkernain Ahmed.

Zulkernain Ahmed alleged his bike was stolen in January 2025 - six months before the fatal collision - in a knifepoint robbery as he was attempting to sell it.

“I didn’t report it because I didn’t have any faith that the police could help, bikes are constantly stolen, not much could be done. I don’t often hear about people getting their property back, especially bikes. I tried to find my bike and eventually I found it and I took it back,” Zulkernain Ahmed said in his statement, adding that he believed the e-bike was his because of the placement of a sticker kit identical to his.

He admitted to knowing La’rome Divers due to trading bikes with him in the past.

Zulkernain Ahmed alleged Mr Divers became involved in the e-bike dispute.

He said: “My house was subject to a robbery a couple of days before. Someone came to my house and tried to kick down my garage door.

“I was told by people that La’rome was looking for me and he was making threats. I was told he was going to kill me. I called La’rome on no caller ID and I told him that he should not get involved and that I had taken my stolen bike back.

“He told me he was going to shoot me in the face and made all kinds of threats towards my family, all because he was defending the people who stole my bike.

“La’rome’s family members have been in serious trouble with the police. Some of them are serving life sentences. I was entitled to take his threat seriously.”

Zulkernain Ahmed admitted receiving a phone call shortly before the crash, in which he was told Mr Divers and others were looking for him.

“I thought they were going to my family home. I went there to deter them, to scare them away from my family’s house. I did not go there with the intention to kill, I went there to deter them from harming my family,” the statement continued.

“La’rome’s family are well known to the police, there was a real reason to think that serious harm could come to my family as they were literally two, three minutes away from my home,” Zulkernain Ahmed said in his statement, adding that he never had any intention of seriously injuring or killing anyone.

Mr MacDonald told the jury of eight women and four men that based on Zulkernain Ahmed’s own statement, it is possible to conclude that he was involved in a continuing dispute with Mr Divers and was “quite prepared to take the law into his own hands.”

“As part of that, to take on people who had, on his own account, threatened him with a potentially deadly weapon in order to take his valuable property.”

He continued: “As a result of threats made against him by La’rome Divers, this time not threatening knives but that he would attack Zulkernain Ahmed with an even deadlier form of weapon in the form of a gun and kill him by shooting him in the face.”

The jury were shown CCTV footage of the fatal incident from a number of different angles.

Mr MacDonald described the footage as “distressing” but urged the jury to act much as doctors in an Emergency Department of a Children’s Hospital would, putting “emotional feelings to one side” and “getting on with the task in hand in an unemotional and intellectually rigorous fashion.”

“Zulkernain Ahmed drove that car at the lads on the bikes so that La’rome Divers was struck in the way you saw on the CCTV.

“We make it clear that we suggest that it is utterly fanciful for anyone to suggest, as Zulkernain Ahmed did, that he was only trying to sideswipe Divers,” he said.

Moving to the roles of the other two defendants, Adam Mohammed, and Zulkernain’s brother, Armaan Ahmed, Mr MacDonald said it is the prosecution case they were “all in this together.”

He continued: “Armaan Ahmed went out that day in that car armed. He was part of a group who went out looking for a person or persons on the other side, so to speak, and to inflict violence upon them so that they should be caused really serious harm.

“And when Adam Mohammed got into that car, he knew exactly what was going on as the earlier telephone evidence makes clear.

“He was there to use violence or at the very least to encourage or assist in the use of violence and he shared the intention…to cause really serious harm.”

Outlining why prosecutors say the three defendants are accused of murdering Abdullah, despite their alleged targets being Mr Divers and the two unidentified males, Mr MacDonald added: “He wasn’t the target. But, if you aim a gun or a car at your target, let us say Divers, and the bullet goes through the target, out the other side and kills another person, the shooter or the driver is guilty of both murders if he intended to cause really serious harm or death to his target.

“In the same way, if the other three were there to encourage or assist in the infliction of really serious harm and it just happens that someone else is killed by the car or the bullet instead of the target, they too are guilty of they share the intention that death or really serious harm should be caused.

A third Ahmed brother, Zain Ahmed, is alleged to have been the front seat passenger in the car at the time of the collision.

Zain Ahmed, 22, disappeared following the collision, and remains a wanted suspect, the court heard.

All three defendants are charged with Abdullah’s murder. They also face three counts of attempted murder in relation to the three bike riders, along with the alternative, lesser charges of grievous bodily harm with intent over the injuries caused to Mr Divers, and attempted grievous bodily harm in relation to the other two, unidentified riders.

They have each pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Zulkernain Ahmed admitted charges of manslaughter and grievous bodily harm, and attempted grievous bodily harm, without intent, at an earlier hearing, but his pleas were rejected by prosecutors.

The trial, which is expected to last between three and four weeks, continues.