A TEENAGER yesterday appeared in court in connection with the killing of an asylum-seeker in a confrontation on a North-East street.

Eighteen-year-old Steven Richard Roberts is accused of the murder of Iranian Peiman Bahmani in an incident in Hendon, Sunderland, last Wednesday.

Mr Roberts, of Morvenside, Edinburgh, is also charged with racially aggravated assault and violent disorder.

Two other men, 22-year-old Joseph Rutherford, and Gavin Gash, 27, also came before Sunderland magistrates accused of racially aggravated assault and violent disorder.

The charges arose from the incident in Peel Street, in which 30-year-old Mr Bahmani died from a single stab wound to the chest.

No pleas were taken and the hearing was adjourned. All three were remanded in custody by magistrates to appear before Newcastle Crown Court next Monday.

No bail application was made on behalf of Mr Roberts, but applications by solicitors for Mr Rutherford, of Grey Road, Hendon, and Mr Gash, of Hedworth Court, both Sunderland, were refused by the bench.

Mr Bahmani fled his native Iran two years ago and had recently worked in a restaurant in Sunderland.

He died, in Sunderland Royal Hospital, just a day before he was to move to Brighton to set up a new restaurant business with his partner Sonia Voza.

His death sparked an outcry by asylum seekers and a peaceful three-hour march last Friday.