July 19, 2008	Saturday	Rajab 15, 1429

LONDON, July 18: British police confirmed on Friday that a youth found stabbed in south London the previous evening was 18 years old, making him the 21st teenager to violently die in the capital.

A spokesman for London's Metropolitan Police said officers were called to south Lambeth at around 7:05 pm (1805 GMT) on Thursday, where they “discovered a male, believed to be in his late teens ... He was taken, in a life-threatening condition, to a south London hospital, where he was pronounced dead.” The force later confirmed the victim was 18 years old, but did not release any more details.

The confirmation of the youth's age comes a day after Britain published its first detailed figures on the extent of knife crime, which has been causing mounting concern because of the number of teenagers killed by weapons this year.

Police in England and Wales recorded 22,151 offences involving knives last year, the Home Office said. The highest number — 7,409 — was in London, where 20 teenagers have died violently since the start of the year.

The Home Office, which has mooted nighttime curfews and the possibility of offenders meeting the families of stab victims, said that despite the knife crime figures, overall crime as recorded by police was down nine per cent.—AFP