Brit is jailed for ten years for horror knife attack on six-year-old boy walking to school: Child was lucky to survive being stabbed in the neck from behind on way to British international school in Madrid

A British man has been sentenced to ten years in prison for the attempted murder of a six-year-old boy near his school in Madrid.

Crazed Albal Z stabbed his victim the day before his seventh birthday with a 12-inch kitchen knife before throwing the weapon into a street rubbish bin as he fled the scene.

The random street attack occurred on December 10, 2021 at a zebra crossing when the young man was returning to the private British international school Hastings School after a physical education lesson.

The boy, the last in a line of classmates, had to undergo emergency surgery for neck injuries sustained during the unprovoked stabbing and was scarred for life, as well as suffering psychological side effects.

Yesterday, her Kosovo-born British attacker, known to UK police due to previous arrests, was given a ten-year prison sentence following his trial last month in the Spanish capital.

The Provincial Court of Madrid ruled that the paranoid schizophrenic should begin his prison sentence in a high-security psychiatric hospital.

Albal, whose surname has not yet been revealed, was arrested 12 days after the horrific attack.

He was captured on CCTV fleeing the crime scene, but his DNA on the knife police recovered proved key to his arrest at a hostel in Madrid. He had only been in Spain eight days before the attack.

Police identified him using a transnational exchange of DNA profiles called the Prum system, designed to combat terrorism and cross-border crime, which is believed to have pinpointed his previous arrests in the UK. It was not immediately clear this morning if any had resulted in convictions.

Prosecutors said they wanted him jailed for 15 years if convicted of attempted murder in a pre-trial charge, accepting that he suffered from a mental illness that altered but did not “override” his perception of reality.

About the attack they said in the accusation: ‘Surprisingly and with the intention of ending his life, he pounced on the young man from behind, without the young man seeing him or being able to react.’

The ten-centimeter wound that the young man suffered affected the muscles of the neck and the muscular veins, affecting a critical area due to the blood vessels located there.

Reports yesterday said the boy had told police when they arrived: “A villain has stabbed me with his sword.”

In addition to a custodial sentence, trial judges ruled that the attacker should be expelled from Spain after serving his sentence and ordered him to stay away from the boy he pursued for 15 years.

He was ordered to pay the boy’s family €45,000 (£38,500) in compensation. He is believed to have handed over almost half that amount to the courts before his trial.

Police chief José Antonio Rodríguez, who led the specialized unit that helped capture the British perpetrator, told the El Español news website overnight: “Here the work of the scientific police was fundamental because the only evidence we had was the knife with the DNA.”

‘That DNA had a name, a man born in Kosovo but with British nationality where he was already known to the authorities.

‘They located him at a shelter in Madrid. He had already bought another knife.

The attacker admitted stabbing his victim at his one-day trial in Madrid on February 19, but his defense lawyer argued he should be acquitted because his mental illness meant he should not be held criminally responsible for his actions.

Their argument was only partially accepted in the judges’ written ruling made public last night.

A police officer who gave evidence at the trial described the attack as part of a “preconceived plan”, saying that Albal had been in the same Madrid neighborhood of Chamartín where it took place two days before the stabbing.