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WORLD  George Harrison Stabbing Case FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS  ENGLAND, Nov 16 (VNN) — George Harrison Stabbing Case BeginsOXFORD, England (AP) - Former Beatle George Harrison shouted ''Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna!'' while being assaulted by a knife-wielding intruder in hopes of disorienting his attacker, a jury heard Tuesday. Harrison said in a statement read in court that he thought he was going to die as the man pushed a knife into his chest and he felt blood rising toward his mouth. Harrison's wife, Olivia, who also was attacked, testified in person of her desperate attempts to stop the man. ''There was blood on the walls, blood on my hands and I realized that we were going to be murdered and this man was succeeding in murdering us and there was absolutely nobody else there to help,'' she said.
The accused attacker, Michael Abram, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to two counts of attempted murder in connection with the Dec. 30 attack at Harrison's home in nearby Henley-on-Thames. Abram, 34, whose trial opened Tuesday at Oxford Crown Court, is charged with breaking into the former Beatle's home and stabbing him, puncturing a lung. He also is accused of attacking Olivia Harrison. George Harrison, 57, told jurors in the statement that he and his wife were awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of a window smashing downstairs. When Harrison went down to investigate, he spotted an intruder. ''He stopped in the center of the kitchen and started shouting and screaming,'' the statement said. ''He was hysterical and frightening in his manner.'' ''I made the decision to shout back at him,'' it continued. ''I shouted at him 'Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna!' He rushed toward the bottom of the stairs and came up toward me. I took a split-second decision to tackle this man.'' Harrison was pinned down by the intruder, who began stabbing him. After Olivia Harrison, 52, managed to knock the man off by hitting him with a brass poker, he began attacking her, prosecutors said. He then turned his attention back to Harrison. ''He again got the better of me. At that point, I felt exposed and could feel the strength drain from me,'' Harrison said. ''I vividly remember a deliberate thrust of the knife toward my chest. I felt my chest deflate and the flow of blood toward my mouth. I believed I had been fatally stabbed.'' The intruder then repeatedly struck him with a table lamp before police arrived and restrained him, Harrison said. Prosecutor Simon Mayo said psychiatric experts had concluded Abram was suffering from a delusion that he had been possessed by George Harrison. ''He thought he had been sent on a mission by God to kill George Harrison,'' Mayo said. ''The experts concluded that undoubtedly Abram intended to kill Mr. Harrison, but he didn't realize that to do so was wrong because of his deluded belief about being possessed by Mr. Harrison.'' ''The central issue to resolve in the case is whether at the time of the incident, the defendant was sane or insane,'' the prosecutor added. Mayo said train tickets were found in Abram's possession indicating he had traveled down from the Liverpool area to commit the attack. Abram also had traveled to Oxfordshire on a number of previous occasions to find out where Harrison lived, he said.  Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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