December 21, 2018
A one-eyed Iranian refugee who was granted asylum in Britain eight years ago has been found guilty of strangling an elderly widow to avoid being thrown off his allotted garden plot.
Rahim Mohammadi, 42, killed Lea Adri-Soejoko, 80, with a lawnmower cord in February 2017 to silence her complaints about his violent behavior at a public gardening area in northwest London.
Adri-Soejoko was the secretary of the garden area. She was found dead in a locked lawnmower shed wearing her Wellington boots and an apron with the shed’s keys in her pocket.
Mohammadi, who was given his plot by a charity for Iranian torture victims, repeatedly clashed with Adri-Soejoko in the months leading up to her murder and accused her of a “conspiracy” over the running of the vegetable garden. He called her a f****** b**** and flooded her with abusive emails claiming he could run the site better.
Her daughter, Tessa, summoned police when Adri-Soejoko failed to turn up at a meeting. She accompanied police to the garden and rang her mother’s phone. When they heard ringing from the shed, the police broke in and found the body with cord from a lawnmower wrapped around her neck.
Mohammadi, nicknamed “glass eye,” was found guilty November 29 after his DNA was found on the lawnmower cord.
The killer, who is of Kurdish origin, came to the UK looking for political asylum in 2005 after he said he was tortured by the Iranian regime.
In 2008, Mohammadi got a garden plot through the group Freedom from Torture. At first he shared his plot with people from Africa, Iran and Afghanistan and visited it twice a week for therapy sessions.
By April 2016, he had gained sole control over his own plot where he grew potatoes, peas and a range of fruit. He was invited onto the management committee by Adri-Soejoko, who lived 100 yards away from the garden and was dedicated to the running of the association, did the accounts and acted as a “peacemaker” during any disputes.
The court was told she took pity on Mohammadi—who claimed she nicknamed him “Little Puppy”—and even lent him money and let him visit her home. But over the next 10 months, Mohammadi grew to resent the way Adri-Soejoko ran things and felt he could do a better job.
On September 11, 2016, Mohammadi shouted down other committee members during the Annual General Meeting, prompting Adri-Soejoko to tell him to “shut up.” Mohammadi responded by ranting at her and calling her a “f****** b****” before storming out.
Adri-Soejoko later apologized for telling him to shut up, but Mohammadi wrote a series of emails complaining about her role on the committee. Mohammadi wrote: “She don’t like it committee asking her from the day she became secretary for one bank statement but she never bring that bank statement – if this is not called a conspiracy then what? She does not understand every member has the same rights she has. I don’t understand why she scared to show a bank statement to others!!!”
Despite the rift, Adri-Soejoko gave Mohammadi responsibility for putting new locks on the garden gates after they were broken three times in one month. She paid him for that work.
In the week before the murder, Mohammadi and Adri-Soejoko clashed again over another dispute between two neighboring plot holders, which was reported to police but did not result in any action.
Adri-Soejoko’s body was found resting on a wooden pallet next to a lawnmower. The starter cord had been pulled out to almost its full length and wrapped tightly around her neck.
It appeared she struggled with Mohammadi before she was strangled. She had suffered bruising to her arms, left wrist, left shoulder, right hand and left knee, bruising and abrasions to the face, a fracture of the spine at the base of the neck and two fractures to the fifth and ninth ribs on the left side.
Mohammadi was given a mandatory life sentence.