Student guilty of flatmate murder

A 20-year-old man faces life in prison after being convicted of murdering a fellow student at a west London flat.

Adam Davies stabbed Saif Mahmood, 21, about 80 times at the maisonette they shared near Brunel University, in Uxbridge, after a row in January.

He then wounded himself and told police two men had broken in and stabbed them, said Detective Inspector Charles King.

A jury failed to agree a verdict in October, but a second Old Bailey jury found Davies guilty on Tuesday.

'Drunken rage'

The court was told the friends fell out after a party where they drank a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of tequila between them.

Michael Worsley QC, prosecuting, said Davies, an English and history student who grew up in Canterbury, Kent, committed a frenzied attack in a drunken rage.

Mr Mahmood, a psychology student, died almost immediately from one of the first stab wounds which penetrated his heart.

But Davies continued lunging at his friend's body with two knives at the flat in Sergeants Close.

He will be sentenced on 23 January 2004.