Jail after pregnant wife died ‘as spirit exorcised’

Mohammed Tauseef Mumtaz, 25, had to be carried out of the dock by his father after being jailed for a minimum of 13 years for the murder of Naila Mumtaz, who was smothered at her Birmingham home in 2009.

The killer’s brother-in-law, Hammad Hassan, was also imprisoned for at least 13 years, while his mother and father, Salma Aslam and Zia Ul-Haq, were both given minimum terms of 15 years by a judge at Birmingham Crown Court.

Mumtaz, his parents, both aged 51, and Hassan, 24, had denied both murder and manslaughter but were convicted of the more serious charge following a 12-week trial which ended in July this year.

The trial heard evidence that Naila, 21, was killed during attempts to render her unconscious as family members attempted to drive out a harmful “jinn” 
spirit.

Jurors also heard that Mumtaz, whose wife was six months pregnant, told police that she had tried to strangle herself at their home in Craythorne Avenue, Handsworth Wood, after becoming “possessed” by the spirit.

Passing sentence on the four defendants, Mr Justice Keith accepted that they had not intended to kill Naila, who moved to the UK in 2008 after an arranged marriage in Pakistan.

Although the jury’s guilty verdicts were consistent with a finding that the victim was deliberately smothered by one or more of the defendants as others held her down, the judge said the panel’s findings did not explain why she was attacked.

During his sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Keith said: “What aggravates the case is that Naila was pregnant at the time of her death, isolated from her family in a country unfamiliar to her, and spoke little if any English.”

Possible motives for the offence raised during the trial were that the defendants believed Naila’s unborn child was not her husband’s – or that she was possessed by a jinn sent from Pakistan.

The judge ruled that it was unlikely the defendants believed Naila was pregnant by another man.

In his account to police, Mumtaz maintained injuries to his wife’s body were self-inflicted.