Extradited killer jailed for murdering wife and daughters

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An abusive husband who fled the country after murdering his estranged wife and their two daughters has been jailed.

Mohammed Abdul Shakur, 46, killed Juli Begum, 26, and his two young children Anika and Thanha Khanum at their east London home on New Year’s Day 2007.

Shakur, who was extradited from Bangladesh in April, had a history of rape and violence against his wife, the Old Bailey heard.

He was jailed for life, with a minimum prison term of 40 years.

After the murders, Shakur fled to his home country of Bangladesh where he confessed his crimes to his sister-in-law, warning her: “If you tell the police I will murder you and your children.”

He later moved to India, illegally, and went to ground for several years before his whereabouts became known.

Image copyrightMETROPOLITAN POLICE

Shakur denied three counts of murder but declined to give evidence in his trial.

The three bodies were found at the family home in Nelson Street, East Ham, on 10 January after Ms Begum’s sister raised the alarm, the court heard.

The body of 4ft 8in Ms Begum was discovered beneath a bedcover with Anika laid across her and Thanha nearby.

Anika, five, had been strangled with a white sock after being “stunned” by a punch or slap to the face, while her six-year-old sister suffered severe blows to the face that fractured her skull.

Their mother was believed to have been smothered with a soft pillow or cushion.

‘Wicked attack’

The couple had an arranged marriage when Ms Begum was 19, but Shakur had repeatedly been violent towards his wife and did not like their children much because they were not boys, the court heard.

Sentencing Shakur, Judge Richard Marks QC said: “This was a wicked, vicious and sustained attack on two little girls, and on your wife, who at 4ft and 8in was a tiny woman.

“You, to this day, have not shown one iota of remorse for what you did.”

The judge sentenced him to a 40-year jail term, less the six years, six months and six days already spent in custody in India and the UK.

In a statement, Ms Begum’s sister Sheli said: “[The murder] has destroyed my life – I cannot watch the television or see a film without something triggering back to what happened.

“It will be with us for the rest of our lives.”