As Mahmoud Hrouk’s family was frantically searching for him in their neighbourhood, the 16-year-old was already dead, after being brutally bashed and sexually assaulted in a nearby vacant Sydney house.
When his mother Maha Dunia last spoke to her son at 9.42 pm on May 16, 2015, the teenager whispered “Mum, I’m with Aymen” before the call was cut off.
His increasingly worried family searched for the boy throughout the night, reported him missing to police, tried to view McDonald’s CCTV footage and even went to the home of Aymen Terkmani at 4am.
On Monday, a NSW Supreme Court jury found Aymen Terkmani guilty of sexually assaulting and murdering Mahmoud Hrouk, 16
Mahmoud was brutally bashed and sexually assaulted in an unoccupied Fairfield East home
The now 24-year-old Terkmani claimed he parted from the teenager at 7.30pm after they ate at McDonald’s.
But on Monday, a NSW Supreme Court jury found him guilty of sexually assaulting and murdering Mahmoud on the evening of May 16 at the unoccupied Fairfield East home.
Mahmoud was affected by ecstasy when he was beaten with a toaster and a rolling pin, strangled and sexually assaulted before his half-naked and bloodied body was found the next morning.
The now 24-year-old Terkmani claimed he parted from the teenager at 7.30pm after they ate at McDonald’s
His numerous injuries included a skull fracture, brain damage, fractured ribs, fractured eye socket, collapsed lung and internal injuries.
Terkmani, whose father testified his son was at home at the time of the murder, showed no reaction to the verdict while Ms Dunia quietly wept at the back of the courtroom.
Ms Dunia testified she was in bed when Mahmoud left for his labouring job about 5.30am on May 16 and asked: “Mum do you need anything before I leave?”
She replied no and said “God bless you” as he left the house – never to be seen alive again by her.
Terkmani showed no reaction to the verdict while Ms Dunia quietly wept at the back of the courtroom
She phoned him around 9pm telling him to come home and he replied he was with a friend and would come home on his pushbike.
In a second call, she told him: “Don’t worry about the bike I’m coming to pick you up.”
“He was whispering saying ‘Mum I am with Aymen, my friend Aymen” before naming two different streets and then “the line cut off”.
During the search, she saw her son’s pushbike outside Terkmani’s house and the next morning it was in a nearby street.
Mahmoud’s father, Azzam Hrouk, told the jury that during the search he kept looking for someone on the ground next to a bicycle.
Mahmoud was affected by ecstasy when he was beaten with a toaster and a rolling pin, strangled and sexually assaulted before his half-naked and bloodied body was found the next morning
“I thought he might have fallen, had an accident.”
After he was told the bike was seen outside Terkmani’s house, he went there in the early hours and spoke to Terkmani in front of his parents.
Terkmani first told him “I don’t know any Mahmoud”, later asked if he was being interrogated and subsequently said he last saw Mahmoud at 7.30pm.
Justice Lucy McCullum set Terkmani’s sentence hearing down for October 27.
As Mahmoud’s family was frantically searching for him in their neighbourhood, the 16-year-old was already dead
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