Guilty, migrant who strangled widow in row at allotments
AN Iranian migrant has been found guilty of killing an elderly widow to save being thrown off his allotment.
Rahim Mohammadi strangled Lea Adri-Soejoko, 80, with flex and hid her body in a locked lawnmower shed among garden plots in Colindale, north London, in February last year.
Her family raised concerns that the grandmother failed to turn up at a meeting and she was wearing her Wellington boots and apron and had keys in her pocket when she was found.
Mohammadi, 42, from Hackney, east London, was found guilty of her murder yesterday following a retrial at the Old Bailey. Prosecutor John Price had told jurors he had a reputation for having a “volatile” temper.
He was involved with the allotment since 2008 through an organisation helping torture victims suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Fractures
In September 2016, he clashed with allotment secretary Mrs Adri-Soejoko at the garden association meeting.
Mr Price said the defendant had ambitions to take over running the allotment group, making the elderly woman wary. During a heated discussion over evictions, she told him to “shut up” and Mohammadi called her a “bloody old witch”, the court heard.
He later attacked her, causing bruises and fractures to the ribs.
The prosecution alleged he then throttled her with the mower cord to stop her from reporting the attack, which would have led to his eviction.
Mr Price said: “Mrs Adri-Soejoko was beaten up. That in turn does point to a motive for her murder – to avoid detection for a shocking and very serious assault on a vulnerable old lady.”
The prosecution said Mohammadi also had keys to the shed and planned to move her body to avoid suspicion falling on him.
But the sound of her ringing phone led police to the body before he could act. His DNA was found on the flex and he was caught on CCTV coming and going from the allotment, jurors were told.
In police interviews, Mohammadi gave different and inconsistent accounts of his movements.
DNA belonging to a second suspect was retrieved from the victim's right hand, but extensive inquiries found he had been nowhere near Colindale.
The court heard Mohammadi sought asylum in Britain in 2005 and got indefinite leave to remain in 2010.
Giving evidence, he said he went to the allotments to buy opium for his bad back on the day of the killing.
He claimed he heard shouting but dismissed it as a drunken fight.
The defendant made no reaction as the jury delivered its guilty verdict, watched in silence by his victim's family who held hands in court.
But as he was led away, Mohammadi turned to the jury and said: “You will have that on your conscience sending an innocent man to prison.”
Judge Richard Marks adjourned sentencing until today.