A MACEDONIAN teenager has been convicted of carrying out a knife attack on a fellow asylum seeker in Blackburn.

Qasim Mika had claimed that he stabbed the man while in fear for his life during the incident in Devon Road.

A jury convicted him of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, at the end of a five day Preston Crown Court trial. Mika, 18, of Walworth Road, London, had denied the charge, which related to an incident last November.

It had been claimed that the defendant had earlier made a suggestive remark to a woman in a taxi.

Later, while Mika was at a house in Devon Road he went outside and ended up stabbing Aswar Amin, an Iraqi Kurd.

Mr Amin sustained several stab wounds.

In his evidence, the defendant claimed that the woman from the taxi had turned up at the address swearing. He said that Mr Amin punched him outside the property, so he punched him back.

He alleged the man took out a knife and that he managed to grab it off him before stabbing him.

Mika told the jury that he was hit with a piece of wood.

"He was attacking me in a very bad way. I would have probably been killed if I did not defend myself", he said.

After the verdict, Judge Pamela Badley adjourned the case to next Friday for sentencing.