Astride Belanger
A BRIT Award-nominated rapper has been jailed for his part in a brutal attack after his best friend was knifed to death.
Pa Salieu, 25, was captured on CCTV cornering then battering a 23-year-old with a tree branch.
4
The victim had to spend ten days in hospital following the “mob” attack.
Salieu, who was named the BBC’s Sound of 2021, was today jailed for two years and nine months.
This came despite a judge accepting that he had “done a good deal more than just behave himself” since the attack four years ago.
Salieu – who appeared in court under his real name, Pa Salieu Gaye – had admitted violent disorder.
He was also convicted of possessing a bottle as an offensive weapon.
But Salieu was cleared of a second violent disorder charge relating to a mass brawl just minutes earlier.
This led to the death of his friend Fidel Glasgow, 21, who was the grandson of The Specials singer Neville Staple.
No one has been charged with Fidel’s murder on September 1, 2018, following a music event at Coventry’s Club M.
Sentencing, Judge Peter Cooke told Salieu: “Anyone harbouring the view that you are a young man being hard done by should pause to reflect that despite having a conviction for carrying a knife three years earlier – which resulted in a suspended sentence – in the course of these events you used two bottles and a stick.
“It was your intention to turn a bottle into a jagged weapon.”
The judge also said the rapper and others involved in the attack had acted like a “mob”.
He added: “The case illustrates the dangers for any young man of acting with a pack mentality and getting involved in mass disorder.
“If you do that somebody is likely to end up seriously injured or dead.
“What happened to Fidel could have happened to anyone in that melee.”
4
4
4
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings