A young Sikh man convicted in early June of the murder of a white student, in a case which sparked outrage in the United Kingdom, has appealed against his sentence to life imprisonment, the Court of Appeal said on Friday.
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Vickrum Digwa, 23, was sentenced on June 1 to life in prison, with a 21-year safety period, for the murder of Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old student, in December in Southampton.
The affair provoked public outrage and demonstrations called by the far right, one of which was marred by violence in Southampton. A widely circulated video showed that police officers dispatched to the scene initially believed the killer, who claimed to have been the victim of a racist attack by the student.
Instead of helping Henry Nowak, who told them he had been stabbed and complained of not being able to breathe, the police handcuffed him and notified him of his arrest, shortly before he succumbed to his injuries.
In mid-June, the British government indicated that it would refer the matter to the Court of Appeal, considering the sentence “too lenient”.
On Friday, the same court indicated that it had also received an appeal from Vickrum Digwa’s defense.
No hearing dates have yet been set for these two motions.
This drama was widely reported by right-wing and far-right figures in the United Kingdom and abroad – including the owner of the social network X Elon Musk – who accused the British police of treating white people and ethnic minorities differently.
On Wednesday, the IOPC, the British police force, announced that it had opened an investigation targeting the first two police officers to arrive at the scene on the evening of the murder.
The police in Hampshire, the county where Southampton is located, apologized after the incident.
