A Manchester teenager who was acquitted of murdering his friend, can be named after a media ban on identifying him was lifted by a judge.
Joshua Molnar, 17, a rugby-playing ex-private schoolboy from a wealthy, professional family, stabbed Yousef Makki in the heart in the leafy village of Hale Barns in March.
His name and background could not be revealed after the four-week trial in July as he was a minor.
Trial judge Mr Justice Bryan has now ordered it can be made public following a request by The Sunday Times.
He turns 18 on Tuesday and would have lost his right to anonymity in any event.
Molnar was cleared of murder and manslaughter after the jury at Manchester Crown Court accepted his claim that he acted in self-defense.
The court heard Molnar’s “good friend” Yousef pulled a knife on him.
But Molnar admitted perverting the course of justice by lying to police about what happened and possessing a flick knife.
He is currently serving 16 months in a young offenders institute.
Fixated with knives, Molnar lived out “idiotic fantasies” of being a middle-class gangster, his trial heard.
A detective described him and a second defendant, who can only be known as boy B, as, “rich kids who have never had to live in the real world”.
Yousef, also 17, Molnar and boy B used street patois such as “bro” and “fam” and spent their time smoking cannabis and “chilling”.
Molnar thought knives were “cool” and routinely smoked cannabis from the age of 15, he told his trial.
He was a big fan of drill music, which glorifies violence and wore a south central LA- style neck bandana, keeping his cannabis and “shank”, or knife, in an Armani man bag, the court heard.
Boy B, 17, was cleared of perverting the course of justice by alleg edly lying to police but was handed a four-month detention order after admitting possessing a flick knife.
Molnar’s parents, Stephanie Molnar and Mark Lazlo Molnar, who split up when he was 13, were both successful business people, but he did not “get on” with his family or appreciate his parents’ generosity, jurors were told.
Their son grew up in Hale Barns, an upmarket village south of Manchester, popular with minor celebrities and Premier League footballers, while Yousef was raised on a council estate in nearby Burnage.
The trio fell out after Molnar was beaten up following an alleged drug deal that went wrong, prompting a confrontation which Yousef tried to stop.
In a statement, Stephanie Molnar said: “Joshua fully accepts responsibility for Yousef’s death in the act of self-defense and the impact of this acceptance is massive.
” He will have to live with the responsibility of his role in this for the rest of his life.
“We are also acutely aware that the hurt and loss that Yousef’s family is experiencing are infinitely greater than anything we are going through and nothing I can say can make up for or change that . ”
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