The discarded end of a cigarette has secured the conviction of a teenage fugitive for manslaughter, after forensic science placed him at the scene of a fatal ambush in south London. Ali Abdul Basit, 19, was found guilty at the Old Bailey on Friday after a two-year international manhunt by the Metropolitan Police, with a match between DNA on a cigarette butt and an asthma inhaler from his home proving pivotal.
The Forensic Link
The conviction hinged on sophisticated DNA profiling, a technique capable of extracting identifiable profiles from minute samples. According to the Metropolitan Police, cigarette butts discarded at the crime scene on Mayfield Crescent yielded DNA that matched three men later convicted for their roles in the incident in December 2024. When Basit became a suspect, officers needed a sample for comparison.
During a search of his home on Leicester Avenue, Mitcham, they seized an asthma inhaler. Detective Inspector Martin Thorpe, who led the investigation, stated that DNA from this inhaler was matched to DNA found on one of the cigarette butts from the scene, forensically tying Basit to the location.
A Planned and Fatal Attack
The attack that claimed the life of 27-year-old father Michael Patrick Afonso Peixoto was one of calculated violence. On the evening of 19 December 2023, the Metropolitan Police stated that a group of men in a white BMW had been waiting in Mayfield Crescent, Thornton Heath, for approximately 30 minutes.
When Mr Peixoto arrived with a friend in a grey Vauxhall Grandland X Elite, he was confronted. A man armed with a large knife stabbed him multiple times, including once in the chest, as he tried to get back into his car. The attack, subsequent reports indicated, was a robbery with the intention of stealing Mr Peixoto’s stash of cocaine.
His friend was threatened with the knife and forced from the vehicle, which was then stolen. The car, registration DL19LVS, was later found abandoned nearby. Mr Peixoto’s murder was the 11th in Croydon in 2023, giving the borough the highest homicide rate in London that year.
Flight, Pursuit, and Conviction
Basit fled the country after he was identified at the scene, embarking on a journey that took him through Venice, Dubai, and Egypt before reaching Pakistan, according to the investigation. Detective Inspector Thorpe suggested Basit may have returned to the UK in May 2025 under the “false pretence” he had evaded justice.
However, upon his return, he was arrested. The Met had compiled extensive evidence, including mobile phone data that linked him to the three other convicted men at the time of the assault. This circumstantial evidence, combined with the definitive DNA match, secured his conviction for manslaughter and robbery.
His accomplices had already been dealt with by the courts. Zak Baako, 29, was found guilty of murder on 20 December 2024 and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 28 years. John Budal, then 20, was convicted of manslaughter and robbery, and Omari Peat, then 23, was found guilty of robbery. Ali Abdul Basit will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on 22 May 2026.
