Affair with married woman led to murder of two men, court told

AN affair with a married woman led to the brutal double murder of two friends whose bodies were dumped in a quiet country lane in West Yorkshire, a court heard.

Afghan electrician Ahmedin Sayed Khyel, 35, was killed with his friend, labourer Imran Khan, also from Afghanistan, by at least three men at a house in Bradford, in May last year, a jury at Bradford Crown Court was told yesterday.

Prosecutor Tahir Khan QC told the court the prime suspect in the murders was taxi driver Muhammed Zubair, whose wife Kainaat Bibi was having an affair with Mr Khyel.

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The discovery of the bodies in a lane near Tong, between Leeds and Bradford, led to the arrest of four people and a subsequent search for their prime suspect, but the court heard Zubair had fled the UK on a flight to Islamabad and has never been found.

It is alleged he and taxi driver Sabir Hussain, 40, were two of the men who attacked the Afghan pair when they entered the home Zubair shared with his wife and mother Arab Sultana, 63.

The prosecutor said: “There can be no doubt that Ahmedin Khyel was murdered because of his affair with this married woman.”

Mr Khan said the two victims were found dead, with head injuries, by motorists shortly after 10pm that day, after the bodies were taken from Zubair’s home at Heath Terrace, Barkerend, in Zubair’s van.

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Taxi driver Hussain, of Wensleydale Road, Bradford, denies two counts of murder.

He is on trial with Mohammed Iqbal Mazar, 29, of Athol Road, Bradford, who denies one count of perverting the course of justice relating to the removal of bloodstains and bloodstained furniture.

Mr Khan told the court about Hussain’s account of the attack, telling jurors: “You may think he was describing a scene of utter carnage.”

He said Hussain told police his friend attacked the two men with a hammer, targeting Mr Khyel first before turning his attention to Mr Khan, and at one point getting the weapon stuck in his skull, he said.

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Mr Khan said it was the prosecution case that Hussain joined in the attack on the men with a dumb-bell bar. He said the defendant told detectives he only used the bar to push the victims, saying he was only involved in subduing and restraining them.

The prosecutor told the jury how the affair between Mr Khyel and Mrs Bibi was an “undisputed fact” and had gone on for some years. The two would have sex at Mrs Bibi’s house when her husband and mother were out. “The two lovers were clearly playing a dangerous game.”

He said Zubair eventually found the mobile phone the pair used to communicate and “expressed a desire to do serious violence” to the man seeing his wife.

He told the jury how on the day of the murders Mr Khyel received a call from his lover and travelled to Bradford, where he was seen near the house in Heath Terrace by Zubair.

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Mr Khyel went to his friend Imran Khan’s house, about a 20 minute walk away. Later that evening, they went for a walk, after Mr Khyel make a brief call to Mrs Bibi’s landline.

At around 8.30pm they entered the Heath Terrace house and went into the sitting room.

The prosecutor told the court that in his statement Hussain said he and another man had arrived earlier when Zubair took his wife and daughter upstairs, returning carrying a hammer and two dumb-bell bars, and they were waiting when the two men arrived.

The jury was told Bibi, 27, of Heath Terrace, has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice in relation to statements she made to police about the whereabouts of her husband.

Sultana, 64, of Heath Terrace, has also admitted perverting the course of justice in relation to buying her son’s flight to Pakistan. The trial continues.

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