Man who pushed 61-year-old onto London Tube tracks found guilty of attempted murder
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Brwa Shorsh was furious as he believed Mr Tadeusz Potoczek (right) gave him a dirty look for being homeless.
PHOTO: 999HERTS/X
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A 61-year-old man in London was almost killed by an oncoming train when he was pushed onto the tracks by a man, who thought he had received a dirty look for being homeless.
Brwa Shorsh, 24, has been found guilty of attempted murder after he shoved Mr Tadeusz Potoczek at Oxford Circus underground station in London on Feb 3, The Guardian reported.
Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras at the station showed Mr Potoczek, a postman in a bright red jacket, on his way home from work when he walks past Shorsh.
Shorsh then gets up from a bench and shoves Mr Potoczek onto the tracks as an oncoming train approaches the tunnel.
In the nick of time, another man rushes to Mr Potoczek and helps to lift him back onto the platform.
The train’s driver said the 61-year-old would have died if he had been on the track just a few seconds later, the Metro reported.
Shorsh, a Kurdish migrant, pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted murder and denied an alternative count of attempted grievous bodily harm, according to The Guardian.
On July 30, prosecutors said the incident was “a random piece of violence” against a man who “had done absolutely nothing wrong”.
Shorsh was found guilty by a jury, which took only about half an hour to reach its decision, and will be sentenced on Sept 26.
He explained that he had been furious as he believed Mr Potoczek gave him a dirty look for being homeless, reported The Metro. He said that three women had allegedly also laughed at him for being homeless.
He added that the 61-year-old had been “very disrespectful” to him.
He told the court: “I am sorry for what happened. I did not intend to kill him and I am not a murderer.”
Prosecutor Sam Barker said: “The prosecution says there is only one reason you would push someone in front of a train and that is to kill them.”
In 2022, New York City police arrested a man suspected of pushing a woman onto the tracks at a Bronx subway station.
In 2019, a man who pushed a 91-year-old passenger onto the tracks at a busy London Underground train station was sentenced to life imprisonment.
