Brothers accused of boy's murder planned to travel to Turkey after fatal crash, jury told
Two brothers alleged to be part of a trio responsible for killing a teenager bought tickets to travel to Turkey shortly after the fatal crash and were arrested at the port of Dover, the jury in a murder trial has been told.
16-year-old Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Taleb, previously named by police as Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Al Yazidi, was not the intended target of the fatal collision, which occurred after a grey Audi vehicle mounted the pavement on Staniforth Road, Darnall.
“Abdullah happened tragically to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Alistair MacDonald KC, prosecuting, told a jury of four men and eight women at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday (Tuesday, January 13, 2026).
Those inside the car were allegedly attempting to run down three males on bikes, with two on e-bikes and one on a moped, when the crash occurred on June 4, 2025. Two of the riders have never been identified, the court heard.
Mr MacDonald said: “The car was coming from the opposite direction and the front offside or right-hand side of the car struck Abdullah, who was thrown into the air and sustained catastrophic injuries in the course of that collision from which there was no hope of recovery.”
Abdullah, who arrived in the country just weeks earlier after fleeing war-torn Yemen, was given “sustained CPR” at the roadside by an off-duty clinical support worker who was passing in a car in the moments following the collision.
Despite the best efforts of the support worker, paramedics and A&E medics, Abdullah could not be saved and died in hospital a short time after the collision.
Police subsequently charged three men - brothers Zulkernain Ahmed, aged 20, and Armaan Ahmed, 27, both of Locke Drive, Darnall and 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. The defendants deny the charges and went on trial yesterday.
Zulkernain Ahmed is alleged to have been the driver of the vehicle, while Armaan Ahmed and Adam Mohammed are said to have been back seat passengers.
Mr MacDonald told jurors that the Ahmed brothers, Zulkernain and Armaan, are alleged to have bought tickets to travel to Turkey via ferry shortly after the fatal crash occurred.
Describing their movements in the immediate aftermath of the crash, Mr MacDonald said: “Zulkernain Ahmed and Armaan Ahmed got out of the car and carried a number of items home with them.
“As we have said, Zulkernain Ahmed made his 999 call. He also sent a message to an associate saying he needed a car picking up and hiding asap.
“They then booked tickets on a cross-channel ferry and went off in a different car to the port of Dover en-route, say the prosecution, to Turkey.
“He and Armaan Ahmed were, in fact, arrested at Dover and brought back to Yorkshire for police questioning.”
A third Ahmed brother, Zain, 22, is alleged to have been the front seat passenger at the time of the collision. Zain Ahmed subsequently disappeared, and remains a wanted suspect, the court heard.
It is the Crown’s case that none of the four men in the grey Audi involved in the fatal crash attempted to call the emergency services as Abdullah, and one of the bike riders, La’rome Divers, lay seriously injured nearby.
Zulkernain Ahmed is alleged to have called 999 to report the Audi as stolen, however.
It was “extremely badly damaged” in the collision, with the front offside of the car effectively wrecked and the tyre deflated so that the car was running on the rim of that wheel.
Prosecutors allege that the car was driven back past the scene of the collision, and into a quiet place where it was parked and left.
“Despite the fact that the collisions here were of great force and you can hear the bangs on the audio associated with the CCTV and despite what each of these men must have seen, not one of them offered to help either of the gravely injured men with whom the car had collided.
“Despite the fact that each had a mobile telephone in his possession, not one of them called 999 to seek to get any sort of help for the gravely injured men. But Zulkernain Ahmed did ring 999 shortly after these awful collisions had occurred. They happened at 16.52.
“At 16.58, in a call in which Zulkernain sounds as cool as he would be in ordering a pizza from the local parlour, he rang 999 in an effort to report his car as having been stolen,” Mr MacDonald said.
He continued: “A witness who saw the whole thing said that they were struck by how calm the people in the car seemed after the terrible events of the collision.
“And that attitude of calmness in the fact of what happened continued. Zain Ahmed disappeared and has never been traced. He remains a wanted suspect.”
Mr MacDonald said that as Zulkernain and Armaan Ahmed were allegedly travelling to Dover “enroute, say the prosecution, to Turkey,” Adam Mohammed, meanwhile, is said to have returned to the scene of the crash.
“He watched paramedics working on the deceased. That sight did not cause him to hand himself in and explain what had happened.
“He remained in South Yorkshire and discovered that the police wanted to speak to him as a result of which he made an arrangement to be interviewed by the police,” Mr MacDonald said.
“It is the prosecution case that they were all in this together,” added Mr Macdonald.
Outlining the defendants’ possible motive for the collision, lead prosecution counsel, Mr MacDonald read jurors a prepared statement, drafted by a solicitor and provided to police, on behalf of Zulkernain Ahmed.
In it, Zulkernain Ahmed alleged Mr Divers had threatened to shoot him in the face “all because he was defending the people who stole my bike.”
Zulkernain Ahmed alleged his bike was stolen in January 2025 - six months before the fatal collision - in a knife-point 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 knew the e-bike was his because of a sticker kit identical to his on it.
He admitted to knowing La’rome Divers due to trading bikes with him in the past, and said Mr Divers became involved after he took his bike back.
“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.”
He 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.
Jurors are set to return to court this afternoon (Wednesday, January 14, 2026) for the second day of the trial.
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.