Defendant admits to multiple lies in her police interview
BUKHARI SAYS SHE IS NOW ‘ASHAMED’ OF HER UNTRUTHS
TIKTOK influencer Mahek Bukhari has admitted to telling “hours of lies” to detectives investigating the double murder of which she is accused – but maintains she never intended to kill the two men who died.
Saqib Hussain, the former lover of Mahek’s mother, Ansreen, and his friend, Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin, died in a crash on the A46 near Sixhills.
The prosecution say Mr Hussain, who had been hoping to get £3,000 from the Bukharis, was trying to get away after realising a late night meeting with the mother and daughter at a Tesco car park in Leicester was a trap.
Mr Hussain and Mr Ijazuddin were driving up the A46 at 100mph, followed closely by the Bukharis and the six coaccused in two cars, when the fatal crash happened.
Mahek Bukhari was asked yesterday morning why she and her mother, who travelled from Stoke on Trent to meet Mr Hussain at the Leicester supermarket, had taken the other six defendants to the meeting.
She said she had wanted co-accused Rekan Karwan there “just so I felt more safer” and that “usually he’d be with (fellow defendant) Raees Jamal”, but she said she had not expected the other four to go along too.
When asked what she feared Mr
Hussain might do, she said: “He’d maybe attack us.”
After Mr Hussain and Mr Ijazuddin sensed a trap and fled from the Tesco car park meeting at about 1.20am on Friday, February 11 last year, Mahek Bukhari - a passenger in one of the two other cars involved - said she went after their car to try to persuade them to stop.
She was asked by her barrister, Christopher Millington KC, if she wanted Mr Hussain to stop so that he could be assaulted, harmed or killed. Bukhari said: “No”.
Mr Millington asked: “When you left Stoke, had it entered your mind that something like this might happen?” She again said: “No”.
After the crash, the mother and daughter remained in Leicestershire for about two hours before heading home.
About four hours after arriving back at their home, the police visited them.
But when the officers asked her where she had been with her mother that night, she replied: “Nottingham”.
Mr Millington asked her if that had been the truth, and she said: “No”.
The court has previously heard that in her police interview after her arrest, Bukhari described her movements on the night as trying to get to a shisha lounge in Nottingham, but being rerouted into Leicester because of “diversions” on the roads.
However, because the Audi she was in was on loan, the vehicle was fitted with a computer, recording various data, which showed that she drove directly to Leicester down the A50.
Bukhari continued to lie during lengthy police interviews, which the jury at Leicester Crown Court has already seen.
She was asked yesterday how she felt about what she told the police, and she said: “I feel ashamed.”
Mr Millington asked her: “During hours of interview, did you lie repeatedly?”
Mahek said: “Yes”.
He asked: “Did you realise the gravity of the position you were in? Did you understand the allegation of murder that was being made against you?” She again said: “Yes”.
The Audi, which according to the prosecution was being driven by Rekan Karwan,was a courtesy car because her own car was being repaired after being hit while parked at her home.
The jury has previously been told by the prosecution that although Raees Jamal, behind the wheel of the Seat, caused the crash, all eight defendants were guilty of murder, having set out to ambush Mr Hussain to obtain the pictures and videos of Ansreen Bukhari. ■ The trial continues.