A man has been arrested and another left with serious injuries following a horrific knife attack in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Monday evening. Graphic mobile phone footage captured the assailant straddling the bloodied victim and hacking at his neck while horrified bystanders screamed, 'He's trying to cut his head off.'
'He's just killed him, hurry up!' a man can be heard shouting in the video. As the victim struggled weakly to escape, the attacker raised what appeared to be a small knife in the air and yelled something unintelligible in a foreign language. 'Get off him ya f**kin rat!' a woman screamed.
The shocking incident unfolded on Kinnaird Avenue shortly after 10:30 pm on June 8. The attacker then brought the knife to the man's throat in front of the horrified witnesses as the victim groaned. 'He's trying to cut his head off! Hurry up! He's slicing his head off!' the man continued.
Bystanders rushed in and attempted to overpower the attacker, with one yelling 'kill him!' The sound of metal hitting the ground was heard as another local rushed in and began striking the offender in the head with a hurling stick. The attacker fell to the ground but refused to release the victim from a headlock. Another bystander kicked the offender in the head before police arrived and intervened.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland confirmed that one man is in custody. 'Police in north Belfast are currently in attendance at Kinnaird Avenue following the report of a stabbing incident shortly after 10:30 pm on Monday June 8,' police said in a statement. 'A man has been arrested in relation to the incident and is in police custody while a second man has been taken to hospital with serious injuries.' Officers will remain at the crime scene and have appealed for witnesses or anyone with dashcam or CCTV footage to come forward.
Right-wing activist Tommy Robinson shared the video on X, where it has been viewed nearly half a million times, writing, 'Horrific scenes in North Belfast tonight as an invader was caught trying to behead a man in the middle of the street!' Police have not yet announced any charges or released the name or immigration status of the alleged offender.
The attack comes in the wake of the brutal stabbing murder of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak by Sikh man Vickrum Digwa in Southampton last December. Digwa, 23, was jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years after being found guilty late last month. Harrowing bodycam footage released last week showed Hampshire Police officers arresting and handcuffing the teen as he bled to death, after the killer and his family falsely accused the student of a racially motivated attack. The footage sparked violent riots in Southampton that left 11 police officers injured and fueled debate over alleged 'two-tier policing' in the UK. Fourteen people have since been charged with violent disorder.
The high-profile case has sparked a diplomatic row between the UK's Labour government and the Trump administration. Vice President JD Vance wrote on X, 'Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit. His murder is as tragic as it is enraging. He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants.' A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hit back at 'people trying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division.' The spokesman added that the Nowak family has 'said they do not want his death to be used to create further division.'
