Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Raped, murdered and stuffed into a freezer
2 women ‘snatched after weeks of plotting’ Survivor talked killer into freeing her, jury told Life for sick murderer who clingfilmed body in wardrobe
A MAN used a family row to plot the kidnap, rape and killing of two women he was obsessed with, a court heard.
Builder Mujahid Arshid, 33, allegedly slit niece Celine Dookhran’s throat and stuffed the bank worker’s body in a freezer at a house he was renovating.
But after cutting his second victim’s neck she talked him into letting her go and got to hospital, the jury was told.
Both women had recently been told they could no longer see their boyfriends.
The family of Celine, a 20-year-old British Indian, disapproved of her Libyan Muslim partner and wanted her to marry a Pakistani. The other victim, who cannot be named, was also told to split with her partner on religious grounds.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC said Arshid “calculatingly took advantage” of the situation in order to kidnap both, making it look like they had run away.
He said: “The defendant had been hatching his murderous plan for several weeks. The prosecution suggest he must have realised two young women whom he adored were slipping away from him.
“If he could not have them, he would make sure nobody else could.”
The Old Bailey heard Arshid and labourer Vincent Tappu, 28, wore balaclavas to kidnap the pair last July. They were threatened with a Taser and bound A BEAST obsessed with snuff films who murdered a girl and hid her body in a clingfilmwrapped wardrobe was jailed for life yesterday.
Ex-con Ashley Foster, 24, strangled Megan Bills, 17, in his bail hostel room on Easter Sunday last year – three days after leaving prison.
He used a fan to hide the smell after stashing and gagged before being forced into the back of Arshid’s truck, Mr Aylett said.
Arshid allegedly told them: “You guys f*** me over, this is what happens.”
The women were driven to a house near Wimbledon, South West London, and allegedly raped at knifepoint.
Days earlier, Arshid put a freezer with a padlocked lid in the kitchen. Having googled “At what temperature does the human body freeze?”, prosecutors think he planned to freeze the pair to death.
Instead, he allegedly slit their throats in the bathroom. Mr Aylett said: “He cut Celine’s throat, most likely with the lock knife. With her mouth still stuffed with a sock, Celine died from the combined her corpse and left her to decompose for three weeks in the room in Brierley Hill, West Mids.
Foster, of no fixed address, had admitted preventing Megan’s decent and lawful burial. At Wolverhampton crown court, he was convicted of murder and got a minimum 26 years. Judge James Burbidge QC told him his conduct was “beyond belief”, adding: “You not only failed to ring the authorities, you bundled her body in a curtain and placed her body in a wardrobe.”
Detective Inspector Caroline Corfield said: “Foster had an unnatural obsession with deviant sexual activity and disposed of Megan’s young life to satisfy his twisted desires.”