Facebook friend tells of shot that left him paralysed

Waqas Saeed, 24, gave evidence from behind screens at Leeds Crown Court having travelled from Lahore to be a witness at the trial of two men accused of conspiring to murder the woman, Neelam Amjid.

He told the court it was in October 2010 that he saw a photograph of her on Facebook and messaged her because he thought she looked familiar.

They exchanged messages and he was told she was unhappy in her marriage to Amjid Ali and he later became aware they were getting divorced.

He and Neelam began to talk frequently on the telephone and their feelings grew for each other, and they hoped to marry.

In January last year she flew to Islamabad and he met her face to face for the first time. She initially stayed in a hotel but then with his family in Lahore.

Subsequently her brother and brother-in-law visited her and she agreed to go back with them to West Yorkshire but within weeks returned again to him in Pakistan.

On March 31 she received a call about her former husband arranging to pay her some money via a man working in Lahore, Mir Hamza Khalid.

That evening an arrangement was made to meet him. Mr Saeed said he drove Neelam Amjid to the place arranged near a bridge and pulled up to let her out when she spotted Mir Hamza Khalid, whom she knew.

She got out and walked towards him. “She may have taken three or four steps and I don’t what they were talking about then he pulled out a pistol and he started firing.”

He told the jury shots were being fired at Neelam and then one of the bullets hit his back as he was sitting in the car.

He had one foot on the accelerator and the other on the clutch and the car started rolling forward. “I didn’t realise what was going on. I didn’t know what had happened to me.”

Mr Saeed said he later found himself in hospital and had not been able to use his legs since.

“I don’t know whether he came to kill me or make me run away, he came to kill Neelam,” he told the jury through an interpreter.

On trial is Neelam Amjid’s former husband Amjid Ali, 42, of Aysgarth Road, Healey, Batley and his brother-in-law Adnan Khalid, 25 of Fairview Avenue, Carlinghow, Batley who both deny conspiracy to murder Neelam Amjid.

The prosecution claim the plot to kill her in Lahore was hatched in Yorkshire because Ali felt he had been wronged and that her conduct had brought shame on him.

She was shot five times in the attack but survived, the jury has heard, because all the bullets passed through her body and missed vital organs.

The trial continues.