Axe-murder suspect arrested

2005-07-31 21:11

London - The family of a black teenager killed in northwest England with an axe to his head, in an attack police say was racially motivated, urged witnesses to the brutal murder to come forward.

Anthony Walker, 18, an honours student who was a keen soccer and basketball player and aspired to be a lawyer, died in hospital on Saturday after being attacked by a gang shouting racist taunts at him, authorities said.

An 18-year-old suspect was arrested on Sunday in connection with the murder, and police said they were searching for others involved in the killing. Police did not release the suspect's name.

"I need to find out who did this to my brother ... my little brother," Dominique Walker, 20, said in an appeal on Sunday.

Waiting for bus

Her brother was waiting for a bus with his white girlfriend and a cousin at a bus stop near his home in Liverpool late on Friday when a man started shouting racist insults at them, police said.

The three did not retaliate, and walked away to find another bus stop, police said. But a group of three or four men followed them through a park, and Walker's companions saw someone bludgeon him with an axe, police said.

They ran to get help and returned a few minutes later to find him with the axe embedded in his skull, police said.

"All his family and friends are devastated," Dominique Walker said. "If anybody knows anything, they have got to talk to police. Talk to them because we need the information."

Flowers

Well-wishers left piles of flowers around the scene of the killing on Sunday.

A lawmaker who lives just metres from the murder scene said there had been some incidents of racial abuse in other areas of the city recently, but the brutal slaying was unprecedented in his neighbourhood.

"It is entirely untypical of this area. The ethnic community, although small, is well-integrated," said legislator Eddie O'Hara.

"We are all totally devastated that this young lad was the victim of what seems to have been a racist attack," O'Hara said. "It is so terrible and sad that he was murdered in this way."

- AP