Second year law student walks free from the Old Bailey after jury finds she was not complicit in murdering an ex that had threatened her with revenge porn
A 22-year-old law student was yesterday acquitted of murder after an Old Bailey jury found that she did not hire her lover to knife to death an ex-boyfriend after the victim threatened to reveal sexually graphic photographs to her Muslim family.
Mohammed Yasser Afzal was stabbed 20 times by Gulam Chowdhury, 24, in a frenzied attack in March 2014, while working at a minicab office in Stratford Broadway, east London.
The court heard how Chowdhury had sent several text messages to former girlfriend and City University law student Nargis Riaz prior to the murder. He explained in detail how he would “burn in hell for her” and “cut the neck of the man who eyed up his wife.”
Chowdhury was convicted of Afzal’s murder after a trial last April and was sentenced to a life term, with the judge ruling that he must serve a minimum of 28 years behind bars.
According to a report on Mail Online, at her trial, which concluded yesterday, Riaz sobbed when images of the brutal attack were shown in court. She told jurors that she never wanted her ex to come to any harm and at the time of the murder she still “felt love” for Afzal.
The Mail reported that when asked by her barrister — 5KBW’s Sarah Forshaw QC — whether she wanted to kill him, Riaz responded: “No, I didn’t want to kill him”.
City University declined to comment on whether Riaz planned to continue her studies.
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City University law student ‘hired hit man to stab to death boyfriend’ [Legal Cheek]