Somaiya Begum honour killing trial: Uncle accused of murdering Yorkshire student, 20, with a metal spike in dispute over forced marriage

Mohammed Taroos Khan, 52, is on trial at Bradford Crown Court accused of the murder of his niece Somaiya Begum, 20, at her home in the city last June.

Somaiya, a biomedical sciences student at Leeds Beckett University, was already the subject of a Forced Marriage Protection Order and had moved out of her parents’ house and in with her grandmother and another uncle after a ‘family dispute’ relating to it.

Khan already has a previous conviction for punching his own daughter and holding a knife to her throat in a row over her own lifestyle and relationships, and was also the subject of a restraining order preventing contact with his elderly mother.

He denies murder but admitted a charge of perverting the course of justice in relation to the disposal of Somaiya’s body and mobile phone.

Opening the prosecution case, Jason Pitter KC said that Somaiya had been at the property, on Binnie Street in Barkerend, on June 25, where she sent her final messages to a schoolfriend. Khan arrived at the house soon after and there was ‘no evidence’ she was alive after that point.

Mr Pitter said: “Khan’s attitude towards women was similar to his brother’s and they were on the same side of the family division. There was a court order in place to protect his own daughter and since 2016 a restraining order to protect his mother. He assaulted his daughter in the belief she had had relationships with boys. Somaiya was happy living with her grandmother and uncle, Dawood Khan, and content with her relations with them.”

The court heard that on the day she was last seen, Dawood Khan arrived home from his shift as a delivery driver at 1.30pm and saw Somaiya in the living room. When he awoke from a nap at 5pm, she was no longer in the house. At 6.30pm, Mohammed Taroos Khan walked into the property, claiming he was there to visit his mother.

However, he had actually made two visits to the property earlier in the day in his Mitsubishi Space Wagon, and two verbal altercations were captured on CCTV as well as him going to get a key cut nearby. It was Dawood Khan who became concerned and by 8pm reported Somaiya missing.

At 5pm, Khan made online searches for rubble bags from B&Q, and the next day was caught on CCTV driving up to an alleyway at the rear of the Binnie Street house. He drove to Carter Gate Works, an industrial yard where he lived, and was captured on CCTV backing the car up to a container and then locking it.

West Yorkshire Police had begun searching for Somaiya, and found her damaged mobile phone in a bin that had been set on fire at Carter Gate Works. Khan gave a statement which the prosecution say was ‘full of lies and omissions’, including that he had been at a car boot sale in Yeadon and doing maintenance work at a catering business on Fitzwilliam Street.

The catering business’s CCTV showed Khan arriving and leaving after finishing his repairs, but he soon returned to the street and pulled up alongside a wall next to some wasteland. He then dragged a heavy item from the car and disposed of it through a gap.

When police searched the overgrown shrubbery on July 6, they found Somaiya’s body rolled up inside a rug. A postmortem found no clear cause of death due to the advanced state of decomposition, but an 11cm metal spike was embedded in her chest, having punctured her lung, and there was damage to her neck. There were clear signs of assault and the spike fitted the handle of a tool found at Carter Gate Works. Her blood was found on a table in the living room at Binnie Street.

When interviewed by police, Khan gave no detailed answers, denied killing his niece and said he had just been ‘driving around’ and parked beside the Fitzwilliam Street wasteland to ‘dump some garbage’.

Summing up, Mr Pitter said: “There may be some misguided cultural justification by him for this ‘honour killing’, but it was not honourable. There was misplaced concern and disapproval about her perfectly normal and happy lifestyle.

"Khan’s behaviour went beyond disposing of her body. He was responsible for Somaiya’s death. He sought to cover his tracks from the outset.”

Khan’s defence rests on his claim that other parties were responsible for Somaiya’s murder. His counsel, Zafar Ali KC, said his client ‘accepted’ Somaiya had been murdered he said he had only been ‘summoned’ to dispose of her body after she had been killed.

The trial continues.