A TEENAGER has described how he was stabbed while trying to save his friend’s life.

Reece Williams was knifed in the hand as he tried to protect 18-year-old Wahab Zaaki from attackers in the stairwell of a Walthamstow tower block.

Kai Shannon and Abubakar Alawi, both 20, are accused of carrying out the brutal assault before dumping the murder weapon as they fled from the scene.

Moments earlier the two victims had been on a first-floor landing of Attlee Terrace in Prospect Hill in March 2009, the Old Bailey heard.

Mr Williams said: “Abukbakar and Kai suddenly came upstairs – I was only aware of them – and they started to attack Wahab.

“At first I thought they were punching him in the head and chest from the way they were throwing their arms towards him.

“I turned and jumped in the middle to stop Wahab being attacked, and I think I put out my left hand to block them.

“That’s when I first saw the knife, as it went through the back of my left hand, which I was using to try to shield Wahab.

“He was laying on the floor. I knew he had been stabbed – there was lots of blood.”

Prosecutors have been unable to offer a possible motive for the killing, but earlier told jurors there “must have been a falling out of some kind” among the alleged murderers and their victims.

Following the stabbing, Mr Zaaki, of Old Church Road, Chingford, was seen staggering out of the building before being hit by a glass which shattered after being hurled by another youth.

He was pronounced dead en route to hospital.

Shannon, of Elmore Street, Canonbury, and Alawi, of Essex Mansions, Essex Road South, Leytonstone, both deny murder and wounding with intent.

The trial continues.