Schoolboy's killers must serve at least 30 years

Two gunmen who murdered an innocent schoolboy while he slept in his bed were jailed for life today with a minimum term of 30 years each. His killers mistook him for his drug-dealing older brother.

Michael Dosunmu, 15, died in a hail of bullets from a MAC-10 "spray and pray" machine pistol, fired by Mohammed Sannoh, 19, who burst into his bedroom in Peckham, south-east London, intent on carrying out a gangland revenge attack.

The schoolboy was shot as he lay under his duvet. Sannoh's accomplice was Abdi Omar Noor, 22, the architect of the attack, who waited in a car outside.

The Old Bailey heard that the killers were looking for Michael's brother, Hakeem, 26, a former soldier who had served with distinction in Iraq and Bosnia before falling into a life of serious crime when he returned to civilian life and struggled to hold down a job. On the night of the murder on 6 February 2007, Hakeem was selling drugs in a nightclub.

Sannoh, 19, of Peckham, and Noor, 22, of Camberwell, showed no emotion as they were both jailed for life at the Old Bailey today.

Judge Stephen Kramer told them: "This was a planned and premeditated killing. It was an execution.

"You both, quite probably acting with another person or others, carried out this killing in an act of revenge.

"Your target was Michael's older brother, Hakeem. Mistakenly and tragically Michael was killed.

"It was a death that could only invoke in all right-minded people feelings of outrage, shock and sympathy for Michael's family."

Michael, an able student who attended a church where his brother was once a Sunday school teacher, was staying at the family home in Diamond Street, Peckham, with his older sister, Shakira. Their mother was in Nigeria visiting relatives and their father was in hospital.

Shakira told police she was woken by the sound of gunfire and her bedroom door was pushed open by a man wearing a green military-style jacket and scarf over his face.

Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said: "She did not move until she heard Michael gasping for breath. She went into his room. There was blood coming from his back and bullet holes in the wall."

A jury returned guilty verdicts on charges of murder against Sannoh, from Peckham, and Noor, from Camberwell, after nine days of deliberation. Michael's father, Rasak, punched the air with his fist as each man was convicted.

Mr Laidlaw underlined the ruthlessness with which the killers had completed a spate of five shootings in two weeks in south London in February 2007. The duo thought they had been ripped off by Hakeem after a series of security van robberies. "The intruders turned the light on and opened fire with a MAC-10 at a figure lying wrapped in a duvet," said the lawyer. "That person had no chance of surviving. He had done nothing wrong.

"It was a well-planned and well-executed execution. Over and above the shocking nature of this shooting, the tragedy is that these two defendants killed the wrong person."

Sannoh and Noor had decided to target Hakeem because of a dispute over the proceeds of the three robberies in which another gang member, Javarie Crighton, had been stabbed to death. Sannoh, who was a friend of Crighton, and Noor believed that Hakeem was holding the money from the raids.

When told by police that he had killed Hakeem's brother, Sannoh said: "This boy's brother killed my friend. I don't care about the murder. I don't care what happened to that boy."

The court heard that after the murder, Hakeem decided to turn his back on his criminal past and cooperate with the investigation into his brother's killing.

Speaking after the convictions yesterday, Rasak Dosunmu said his family would support Hakeem. "Presently, he is feeling guilty that he brought all this on us. But this is not the way we brought him up. He is our son, we love him. We cannot discard him. He made a mistake in his life."

Describing the death of Michael as being "like stabbing us in the heart", Mr Dosunmu paid tribute to his dead son as, "the type of boy every parent would want to have". He said: "Michael died with unfulfilled dreams."