An illegal immigrant who slit a former colleague's throat in front of horrified commuters at Golders Green Tube station last November was jailed indefinitely on Thursday.

The Old Bailey heard that Asif Yaqub, 27, a former clothes presser at Green Spot Valet dry cleaners, in Golders Green Road, Golders Green, lay in wait by the entrance to the Tube station for Prince Franklin Edekin, 29, a dry cleaning assistant with whom he had worked one year previously.

Yaqub, who had come from Pakistan in 1999, worked alongside Mr Edekin in 2003 but the two had fallen out and, on November 15 last year, he crept up behind him and slashed his throat, leaving a four inch deep wound.

Dee Connolly, prosecuting, said: "Mr Edekin had complained about the defendant to the manager and had thereafter been threatened."

Yaqub left the shop but came back on November 12 last year, asking for money and for his old job. But the manager told him he could not afford to take on another worker, and told Yaqub that Mr Edekin was still employed.

Three days later, Mr Edekin left work at 5.30pm and went into Golders Green Tube station when he felt a sharp object cut across his throat and then blood running down his neck. Had the knife penetrated 5mm deeper it would have cut his voice box, carotid artery or jugular vein, said Miss Connolly.

Two months earlier, Yaqub - who had lived with his brother in a flat in Queen's Road, Walthamstow - stabbed his landlord, Sabir Hussain, 56, in the stomach with a kitchen knife after he asked him to pay three weeks of rent arrears.

Yaqub handed himself in to Notting Hill police station on November 20 and admitted two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Sentencing Yaqub to an indeterminate sentence for public protection, Judge David Paget recommended he serve a minimum of seven and a half years before being considered for release, when he should be deported.