Taxi driver who killed his children with petrol soaked rag gets life

A taxi driver who killed his two young children by smothering them with a petrol- soaked rag has been been jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years.

En dr is Mohammed was unanimously convicted last week of the murders of Saros En dr is, eight, and his sixyear-old sister Lean or, who both died of air way obstruction after suffering chemical burns to their faces.

Mohammed was also given a concurrent ten- year sentence at Birmingham Crown Court for the attempted murder of his wife, who was asleep when the 47- year-old killed their children and set fire to their home.

Passing sentence, Mr Jus - tice Gilbart rejected Mohammed’s claim to have planned to end his own life before the “terrible criminal enterprise” designed to kill the children and their mother.

Mohammed, from Hamstead in Birmingham, tried to murder his wife, Penil Teklehaimanot, by tampering with a gas pipe and setting a fire near their front door in the early hours of October 28 last year.

The former factor y worker bought a fuel can and three litres of petrol around 12 hours before the killing sand l ater suffered burns to his head after setting the passenger side of his cab alight.

The judge accepted Mohammed was suffering from a depressive illness falling short of diminished responsibility, but said a withdrawal from a cash machine hours before - hand showed he had not intended to take his own life.

The judge said: “You smothered your children with a petrol soaked cloth.

“You told the psychiatrists that you did so to prevent them feeling the ghastly death of being burned alive, I give that little credence.”