Wani Lado found mentally incompetent over the attempted murder of his step-brother

A schizophrenic man associated rappers’ haircuts with killing when he tried to stab his step-brother to death, a court has concluded.

A mentally ill young man stabbed his stepbrother numerous times, including to the eye, because he associated the hairstyles of rappers with killing, a Supreme Court Justice has found.

Wani Lado was suffering from undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia on April 17, 2019 when he attacked his stepbrother at their home.

On Friday, Lado was found not guilty of the crime because of mental incompetence.

In his ruling, Justice Kevin Nicholson said the reports of two psychiatrist showed that Lado, who continued to suffer persistent psychotic symptoms for almost a year after the attack, was suffering from a mental impairment.

One psychiatrist reported that in the lead up to the violent assault for which he was charged with attempted murder, Lado had been interpreting “benign stimuli” through the lens of his mental illness.

He made links between conversations with his mother and stepfather, interactions between his brother and stepbrothers, as well as videos and online conversations he was having.

What started as “associating the hairstyles of rappers with killing” became a convoluted plan to protect his brother by killing his victim.

He heard his parents in his head telling him “to hurt his victim because he was “creeping”, had a “vibe” and that it had something to do with (his victim) being the tallest”.

Around 4.30am, Lado took a knife from the family kitchen and went into his stepbrother’s bedroom.

He started to strangle the victim and then stabbed him to the chest, hand and eye.

His parents, on hearing the victim’s screams for help, entered the room and pulled Lado off away.

Lado admitted the attack to police but later pleaded not guilty by way of mental incompetence.

The court heard that Lado had not had any issues with the victim in the past and the attack was described as “unprovoked and uncharacteristic” of him.

A different psychiatrist said that Lado had been egged on by “delusional inferences he was drawing from social media”.

The psychiatrist concluded that Lado knew what he was doing was illegal but thought he would be safe from “toxic air” in prison.

Lado will be spend a period of time equivalent to what he would have served in prison in a mental health facility.