Four gets lifer for ‘honour killing’ in UK

Judge James Stewart of the Leeds Crown Court handed down the verdict.

A Pakistani-origin man, along with three of his accomplices, was sentenced to life imprisonment for hunting down and executing his sister’s husband in a case of “honour-killing”.

Judge James Stewart of the Leeds Crown Court handed down the verdict yesterday to Arza Khan and his three accomplices, John Reeves, 55, a Sheffield-based criminal, Sam Lee, 30, also from Sheffield and another identified as Naveed Mahmood, 23.

Delivering the judgment Stewart described the murder as “a cold-blooded execution” and told the killers: “Life to you seems so cheap.” Arza Khan hired the trio to kill Pakistani-born Mian Shahid Mehmood, 29, whom his sister Yasmin, 25, secretly married in Pakistan in October 2004.

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The case recorded that Shahid Mehmood was flushed out from his hiding place in Halifax, West Yorkshire, from where he was taken to a remote place and forced to kneel down before he was shot twice in the back on February 11 last year.

Turning to 28-year-old Arza Khan, the mastermind behind the killing, the judge said: “There is no honour in what you did, quite the reverse. You have only brought dishonour and disgrace upon your family which has been rent asunder by your cruelty and arrogance.” All four conspirators were convicted of the murder, with Khan, Reeves and Mahmood being told that they would serve at least 32 years behind bars before being considered for parole.

Lee will serve a life term of at least 25 years.

Jury members of the court heard that evidence in the case suggested that the actual shooting was carried out by John Reeves, while Mahmood and Lee went as “fixer” and “muscleman” in case Mehmood put up a struggle.

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Prosecutor Tom Bayliss had told the court that Yasmin was one of the six children born to Pakistani parents residing in Halifax.

At the age of nine, she moved to Pakistan with her mother and lived with her uncles, Rehmat Khan and Arza Khan.

When Yasmin turned 15, she was allowed to return to Britain, with a decree that she would later return to Pakistan to marry one of her nephews.

Back in Yorkshire, Yasmin worked as a receptionist and studied for A-levels at Calderdale College. Her family disapproved of her lifestyle and she was sometimes beaten, according to the prosecutor.

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In 2002, she was taken back to Pakistan and it was when she met and started having a relationship with Shahid Mehmood.

Later she returned to Britain and lived for some time in Edinburgh and Cardiff. It was during this period, her uncle Arza Khan, made threatening calls to her.

Yasmin, however, shrugged off the threats, came back to Pakistan and married her lover secretly. Shahid Mehmood came along with Yasmin and started living in Halifax.