Apprentice star tackles attacker after ‘three people slashed in Aldi car park’

A man has been charged with attempted murder after a knife attack outside a supermarket which saw a television star come to the rescue.

Passersby and shoppers at Aldi in the Bevois area of Southampton saw a man brandishing a knife outside the shop on Sunday afternoon.

Large swathes of the supermarket car park were cordoned off by police after the incident, during which video captured the moment two police officers handcuffed a man on the pavement nearby.

What appears to be a knife can be seen on the road nearby.

Sohail Chowdhary, who appeared on The Apprentice in 2022, was one of the first people on the scene after three people were injured or threatened with the blade.

He told the Daily Echo he and three others tried to distract the suspect while others ran to safety.

Sohail also pulled the suspect off a father-to-be who had fallen over while trying to get away.

He said: ‘We went to go have a look. We saw a guy with a helmet, then we saw the other guy had a knife.

‘We were a bit like what the heck. The amount of blood he had on his knife we weren’t going to risk that.

‘[The man on the floor] told me afterwards that he has a kid on the way so thank god he didn’t get stabbed.’

Sohail along with one of his colleagues at Limitless Martial Arts, the gym he owns, and two of his students, got involved to try and distract the suspect while waiting for the police to arrive.

Describing how his staff and students reacted to the incident, he said: ‘I am just proud of these guys.

‘I wasn’t expecting that on a Sunday morning. It could have been a lot worse.

‘This incident has made many of us more alert. We will now be actively ensuring that all our students, adults and children alike, are aware of what to do in emergency situations, both inside and outside of class.

‘It makes me more and more grateful to not only change lives, but to now officially save lives.’

Azzedvie Mahmoudi, 46, of Cobbett Road, Southampton, has been charged with three counts of attempted murder, one of attempted GBH, three of threatening a person with a blade or sharply pointed article in a public place, and one of possessing a blade or sharp pointed article in a public place.

He is in custody and is set to appear at Southampton magistrates court this morning.

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