Husband jailed for murdering wife and children

A “CONTROLLING” husband who murdered his wife and two children in the former home of John Lennon has been jailed for a minimum of 31 years.

Sami Salem, 30, had claimed diminished responsibility for the killings but was found guilty of murdering wife Arena Saeed, 30, daughter Shadia, seven, and son Rami, four, following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

The court heard he suffocated his wife and drowned his two children in the bath at their flat in Falkner Street in Liverpool – which is a regular stop for Beatles fans on sightseeing tours of the city.

When relatives gained access to the family’s home they found the three victims lying on the bed, with Salem almost unconscious at the foot of the bed.

The property was home to a flat owned by Beatles manager Brian Epstein in the 1960s, where Lennon and his first wife Cynthia lived shortly after they married.

At his sentencing hearing yesterday, the court heard Salem, who was surrounded in the dock by four workers from high-security psychiatric hospital Ashworth, was a paranoid schizophrenic. Mr Justice Holgate said there was evidence he was controlling and possessive towards his wife, who he married in Yemen in 2009.

The judge said: “He sought to control her movements outside the flat and whom she met. He controlled her access to the internet and use of a mobile phone. This affected her ability to communicate with her family in the Yemen.”

The court heard Salem began to experience hallucinations and paranoid beliefs towards the end of 2016. Benjamin Myers QC, defending, said: “This is not a murder, or murders, that takes place against a background of someone who had conventional clarity of view.”

Salem told doctors he ate food and watched television after killing his wife and children before going to a petrol station and buying 25 litres of petrol, which he spread around the flat and over the legs of the children.

The court heard the family of Mrs Saeed said she was “known for her kindness”. “The family is said to be heartbroken and has suffered enormously,” the judge said.