LONDON: A British court Monday awarded a combined sentence of 78 years to six people of Pakistani descent for offences in connection with the kidnap and murder of Lahore-born Mahmood Ahmad.
They were sentenced at St Albans Crown Court by Mr. Justice Cooke following a ten-week trial. It took 12 jurors over three days to deliberate and return their unanimous verdicts. The jury was taken through 733 witness statements by 60 witnesses, 1,741 exhibits and 45 interviews.
Mahmood, 41, was kidnapped outside his home address in Watford, north west England, in the early hours of March 7 last year. He had just finished work at the Lahore Kebab House in Aldgate, East London.
Those convicted included Mohammed Riaz, aged 34, given 30 years imprisonment, Sharif Mohammed, aged 37, sentenced to 26 years imprisonment, Faisal Chowdhury, aged 18, given three years and six months imprisonment, Arnold Yousaf, aged 19, given three years and six months imprisonment, Amirzada Hussain, aged 37, given 12 years imprisonment and Sabra Sultana, aged 36 who was given three years imprisonment.
Mahmood's body has never been found and none of the convicted people have spoken during interview about where his body might be.
Sentencing, the judge Cooke described Riaz as the 'key architect' in a premeditated crime where he watched Mahmood over a period of months in order to find the whereabouts of his ex wife Mahmood's sister. He then recruited the other defendants to help at different stages in the kidnap, false imprisonment and later murder of Mahmood, before trying to destroy the evidence.
The judge, addressing the defendants, added: "Only you know exactly what occurred and the precise motivation, and you have chosen not to discuss those night's events."
He also praised Mahmood's family for their conduct during the trial and expressed the court's sympathy.
A statement by Mahmood's wife Farah following the sentence said: "The events of the early hours of Sunday, March 7, 2010, when Mahmood did not come home from work have never left me. Knowing he was only steps away from the front door kills me everyday. While I was waiting for him inside, Mahmood was being bundled into a car, to later be tortured and eventually killed by people that I can only describe the acts committed that night have destroyed the lives of our families and friends. It is heartbreaking and devastating to know what this innocent blameless man had to suffer."
"I am pleased that the people who are responsible for murdering my husband in the most brutal way will be spending a very long time behind bars". Farah and Mahmood met in March 2006 and married two years later.
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