He is a mere trifle, but needs a lesson, says fruit vendor

AN Iraqi exile who escaped Saddam Hussein has been targeted by a new persecutor – a teenage boy who has repeatedly set fire to his Bloomsbury fruit stall.
But despite graffiti death threats, Roz Abdulla, 49, says the boy’s terror campaign is a mere trifle. “I’ve seen war, I’ve seen 400 people dead, including my own family. I’ll never be scared of rubbish like this,” he said.
The boy has smashed his way into the wooden fruit stall in Marchmont Street on six occasions in two weeks, attacking in the early morning before Mr Abdullah arrives to open up at 8am.
He has stolen cash and hi fi speakers, poured diesel oil and green paint over the produce, and twice started fires in the shack using brown paper bags as fuel – damages and losses totalling several hundred pounds.
Fire engines were called after smoke was seen pouring out the shack following the second arson attack, last Monday.
A racist death threat – wrongly referring to Mr Abdulla as a Pakistani – was daubed across the stall’s side. Mr Abdulla fled the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 1991. He lost 27 members of his family, including his mother, in Saddam’s gas attack on the Kurds in 1988. He now lives in Chalk Farm with his wife and two young sons.
A civil engineer in Iraq, he decided to build himself the fruit stall and opened for business two months ago.
“I don’t want to disturb anyone and I don’t want anyone to disturb me,” he said. He has caught the boy in the act on several occasions, the first of which saw the boy pulling a knife before fleeing.
“I know who he is,” said Mr Abdulla, “He would come up to me before all this and say, ‘Hello boss,’ before trying to sell me mobile phones or asking for change. I don’t want to ruin his life, but he needs to learn his lesson.”
A teenage boy from Bloomsbury was in police custody yesterday (Wednesday) after being arrested in connection with the attacks.