A paranoid Fife restaurant worker who stabbed a colleague to death because he thought he was being poisoned has been detained at the State Hospital in Carstairs.
Abdul Foyez killed Mohammed Salim Uddin by knifing him in the stomach at the Gulshan Tandoori in Inverkeithing on September 17 2021.
He was acquitted of murder after the Crown accepted he was suffering from diminished mental responsibility at the time of the offence.
A court heard Foyez had recently moved into a bedsit with his victim, from Bangladesh.
Risk of further ‘fatal’ attacks
At the High Court in Livingston on Monday, forensic psychiatrist Dr Sheila Howitt, who is treating Foyez in a secure unit at Carstairs, said she had extremely limited insight into his mental illness.
She said the killing of 44-year-old Mr Uddin was in response to paranoid delusions he was being persecuted by the mafia and his friend was trying to kill him by poisoning him.
She said he believed he was being persecuted by the Bangladeshi community in London and moved to Scotland two weeks before the death because he thought it would be safer.
In the absence of appropriate treatment – specifically anti-psychotic medication, she said – he would pose a risk to others.
She explained: “He thought people were working with sources like the mafia and he had wider delusions and persecuting beliefs.
“He’d not been eating for some period of time due to concerns that his food as being interfered with and he’d lost weight.
“In my opinion Mr Foyez could perpetrate further such attacks in the future if he weren’t to receive treatment.
“Such attacks could once again prove fatal.
“There is also a risk to his own welfare.
“When I first saw him in custody, his self-care was very poor.”
She said Foyez, 28, did not believe he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, the mental disorder with which he had been diagnosed and did not accept he had to take anti-psychotic medication.
It is her expert opinion if he remained at liberty his mental condition would deteriorate, putting those around him at significant risk so a restriction order was necessary.
Judge Lord Lake confirmed the compulsion order and made “high risk” Foyez subject to a restriction order.
Brave public stopped killer
The court was told other restaurant workers rushed to Mr Uddin’s aid after they heard him shouting: “Help me, save my life”.
They saw Foyez clutching a large kitchen knife in his hand with his apron covered in blood.
He appeared “angry” and ran from the restaurant while other staff dialled 999 and tried to stop the bleeding.
He was later pronounced dead at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, dying from a single stab wound to his liver.
Foyez fled the scene and dumped the knife in a bin at Inverkeithing train station but was bravely confronted by two men, who alerted police.
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