Illegal immigrant who hacked off neighbour's head with meat cleaver has his sentence CUT by six years

An illegal immigrant who raped a nanny and decapitated his neighbour had his life sentence cut by six years today.

Algerian Mohamed Boudjenane, 49, assaulted the Filipina woman and shaved off her hair before killing Lakhdar Ouyahia, 43, in the belief the two were having an affair.

Boudjenane was captured on CCTV carrying the head of Mr Ouyahia in a plastic bag on a bus to Regents Canal in Maida Vale, West London.

'Manslaughter': Mohamed Boudjenane carrying the head of neighbour Lakhdar Ouyahia in a plastic bag

The headless corpse was found wrapped in a duvet two days later at the back of a supermarket near Boudjenane's home in Kilburn, North-West London.

The Algerian showed police where he had thrown the head in a canal and police divers recovered it from the water.

But he claimed he had no memory of hitting Mr Ouyahia with a hammer and hacking off his head with a meat cleaver.

Boudjenane was convicted of murder, two counts of rape and false imprisonment by an Old Bailey jury in 2008.

It also emerged Boudjenane was still claiming dole when he should have been thrown out of the country in 2001.

Judge Christopher Moss QC jailed the Algerian for life, with a minimum term of 22 years.

But the murder conviction was quashed last year after the Court of Appeal ruled the trial judge had misdirected the jury on psychiatric evidence.

Chilling: Boudjenane casually strolls through West London with his victim's head in a plastic bag

When the case was referred back to the Old Bailey in September this year, Boudjenane pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.

The Recorder of London, Judge Peter Beaumont QC, jailed him for life with a minimum term of 16 years after hearing he suffered from a ‘paranoid and delusional disorder’ at the time of the killing.

He said: ‘Given the extreme nature of the violence perpetrated both before and in carrying out the killing, the protection of the public, and indeed the elimination of risk to the public, is paramount.’

However, the fresh psychiatric evidence meant there should be a ‘substantial reduction’ in the minimum term originally imposed, he added.

The sentence will run concurrently with the 15-year jail term imposed in 2008 for the rape and false imprisonment offences.

Boudjenane met the 42-year-old Filipina nanny at a party a few months before the attack, the Old Bailey heard at the original trial.

Mohamed Boudjenane (left), was jailed for life after killing his neighbour Lakhdar Ouyahia (right) and dumping his head in a canal

She worked in Oxford but on February 3 ran into him outside a newsagents in Kilburn, and reluctantly agreed to go to his flat.

He double locked the front door, tied her up with shoelaces and shaved off her hair, raping her twice.

The court heard Boudjenane threatened to kill her by putting her in a tub of boiling water and also accused her of being a prostitute and having sex with 'the man upstairs' - Mr Ouyahia.

But he let her go the next day after she repeatedly promised to become a Muslim to marry him.

He went to Sainsbury's at around 8pm to buy bleach, Dettol and a mop as he plotted to kill Mr Ouyahia, and was next seen boarding a bus carrying a 'head-shaped' bag on February 5.

Given the extreme nature of the violence perpetrated both before and in carrying out the killing, the protection of the public, and elimination of risk to the public, is paramount

JUDGE PETER BEAUMONT, QC

The victim's headless body was discovered by a member of the public at the back of Somerfield's supermarket the next day.

Boudjenane fled to Alvaston in Derby to stay with a girlfriend but was arrested on February 7.

Boudjenane admitted he had killed Mr Ouyahia but claimed he could not remember anything about the attack or his movements up until his arrest.

His barrister Orlando Pownall QC asked him: 'Do you accept that you must have taken the head of Mr Ouyahia on the bus and threw it into the canal?' He replied: 'No.' 

Mr Pownall asked: 'Who else could it have been if it wasn't you?' and Boudjenane replied: 'I can't remember.'

Mr Pownall asked if he used that cleaver to cut his head off, but Boudjenane said: 'I don't know.'

Judge Moss told him: 'I have no doubt on the evidence that you intended to kill him. Thereafter, you insulted his dead body by mutilation. You decapitated his body and tried to dismember him.

'You disposed of the head and body in an attempt as I find to avoid capture. You are, it seems to me, a very dangerous individual.' 

Boudjenane complained of having suicidal thoughts and hearing strange voices - although he didn't know what language they were speaking in.

The psychiatrist at the time decided he did not have any psychiatric illness but he was seen at an outpatients' clinic over the next year.