An uncle has been found guilty of murdering his 20-year-old niece in a so-called ‘honour killing’ before dumping her body on wasteland after she refused a forced marriage to a cousin.
Mohammed Taroos Khan, 53, has been convicted of killing Somaiya Begum in Bradford, west Yorkshire, in July 2022.
The Leeds Beckett University biomedical student was found dead just over a mile from her home after a major week-long police search.
She was discovered with an 11cm-long ‘Bradawl’ tool – a sharpened metal woodwork implement – stuck in the right side of her chest on a light industrial estate.
Her uncle denied murder but was today found guilty after a trial at Bradford Crown Court. Khan looked towards the public gallery, where sobs could be heard, as the verdict was announced.
He will be sentenced tomorrow.
Somaiya Begum, 20, was killed in Bradford, west Yorkshire in July last year
Mohammed Taroos Khan denied murder but was today found guilty after a trial at Bradford Crown Court
Ms Begum had been living with her grandmother and another of her uncles after her parents had been issued with a Forced Marriage Protection Order.
This followed her refusal to marry a cousin in Pakistan when she was 16 years old, Bradford Crown Court had heard.
Prosecutors said Khan had cut a set of keys to the three-bedroom house on June 25 last year before killing Ms Begum in a ‘traumatic’ attack.
Jurors were told Khan then ‘bundled’ her body up and made online searches for ‘rubble bags’, before disposing of her body ‘like rubbish’ on wasteland.
He had pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice by disposing of her body and destroying her phone, found in a nearby smouldering bin.
Earlier in the trial, jurors were shown CCTV footage of the moment prosecutors say shows Khan dragging Ms Begum’s body from his car and dumping it on waste ground.
The court heard Ms Begum had been offered up for an arranged marriage at 16 by her dad, Yaseen Khan, who wanted her to marry her first cousin in Pakistan.
And he was left ‘humiliated and incandescent with rage’ when she refused the proposal and later told the police of his plans, her aunt Ishrath said in evidence.
The biomedical student was found dead just over a mile from her home in Bradford after a major week-long police search
Police searched an industrial estate and house believed to be connected to the case
Ms Begum had been living with her grandmother and another of her uncles after her parents had been issued with a Forced Marriage Protection Order
Both Yaseen and his brother Mohammed Khan were prohibited from going to the address where she was living as they held ‘similar’ hard-line attitudes, the court heard.
Mr Jason Pitter KC, prosecuting, said Khan visited the home three times on June 25 last year in his Mitsubishi Space Wagon vehicle and had contacted Ms Begum by phone.
Khan had cut a key for property – worth roughly £110,000 – before he turned up at the address at about 3.50 pm, the jury was told.
Mr Pitter said: ‘At around 3.30 pm, Somaiya Begum sent final messages to her close companion and school friend. Not long after that, her telephone was to cease meaningful use.
‘That coincided with the arrival of her uncle, the defendant, Mohammed Taroos Khan at her home address in the minutes afterwards.
‘Whilst the prosecution cannot say precisely when Somaiya was killed, you can conclude that something significant had happened around or shortly after that point because there was no apparent further communication between Somaiya and anyone else after that time.’
Mr Pitter said Khan had then gone to Carter Gate Works industrial yard where he had living quarters, before returning to Binnie Street at 5.29 pm.
And during the intervening period, the prosecutor told the court Khan had made searches online for ‘large, one tonne capacity, rubble bags including at the B&Q store.’
He said: ‘The CCTV footage showed him opening a door to a container. He can be seen to be wearing gloves at the time.
‘He then reversed his car up to the container entrance, however, the door was positioned in such a way as to obscure what he was doing from the CCTV camera.’
Mr Pitter said Khan was discovered by Somaiya’s uncle, Dawood, at the property at around 6.30 pm after he walked through the home’s ‘normally locked front door’.
And told jurors that it was during this period when Khan was making ‘his plans to finally dispose of her body’.
Ms Begum’s remains were found on the industrial site several days later by police on July 6, with a postmortem examination showing signs of ‘trauma and assault.’
Mr Pitter said: ‘There was some evidence of potential damage to the structure of her neck.
‘In addition, a metal spike of about 11 cm in length, was found embedded in the right side of her chest puncturing her lung in such a way that it indicated that it was caused prior to her death.’
Detectives as they searched for missing Somaiya Begum in Bradford
Forensic officers and sniffer dogs were seen search for evidence at Miss Begum’s home
Khan’s defence counsel, Mr Zafar Ali, described how in the Pathan community, which Somaiya belonged, ‘blood feuds’ could last generations.
And he suggested her ‘humiliated’ father Yaseen had a ‘motive’ to kill her after she’d refused to participate in the marriage he’d arranged for her with her cousin years earlier.
He also told the court that Yaseen had taken a ‘one-way’ ticket to Pakistan not long before the trial commenced without giving his family a reason.
But the jury decided on the strength of the evidence, that Mohammed Khan was guilty of Somaiya’s murder – following his initial arrest on July 6 last year.
Mr Pitter suggested that her uncle may have murdered her in an ‘honour killing’.
He said: ‘It may be that as part of it he advances issues in relation to the family’s culture and religion which may have been the misguided justification to kill her.
‘We suppose in the context of the inappropriately named ‘honour killing’.
‘Whatever his motive, because it was him, even if others, as he may seek to say, were involved, it was not honourable.’
Earlier this month a statement from Detective Constable Scott Kennedy was read to the court, describing Khan’s comments in custody after he had been arrested for Ms Begum’s murder.
The statement, read by prosecutor Tom Storey, said Dc Kennedy was with Khan in an interview room on June 29 as an application was being made to magistrates for his continued detention.
‘(Khan) asked me what the sentence for ‘someone in his position’ was,’ Dc Kennedy said.
‘I explained murder could carry a life sentence. He went on to ask what the sentence was for the lesser offence of manslaughter.
‘Again I explained that would be determined by a judge with the facts of the case taken into account.
‘He asked if it was true you only serve half your sentence in prison. I said that would depend on the judge.’
