A man who suffocated a woman with a face mask before dumping her body in a suitcase near the M25 has today been jailed for life.
Muhammad Arslan will serve a minimum term of 20 years after being found guilty of murdering 21-year-old Hina Bashir, who was found with a floral patterned mask stuffed in her mouth.
Ms Bashir's distraught father told the court animals would have treated his daughter better than the "evil" killer who claimed to be in love her.
Warehouse worker Arslan had admitted manslaughter on the first day of his trial, but denied murder and perverting the course of justice by concealing Ms Bashir’s body.
Ms Bashir, who was studying business management at Coventry University's London campus, went missing after visiting the home of Arslan in Ilford, east London last July.
Days later, her body was found stuffed in a large suitcase and dumped in undergrowth near Upminster.
Police uncovered evidence that 27-year-old Arslan had become "obsessed" with Ms Bashir.
During sentencing judge Richard Marks told Arslan: “I am satisfied…that your unrequited feelings for Hina boiled over and resulted in you taking hold of a facemask and forcing it into the back of her mouth which led to her collapse and ultimately to her death from asphyxiation.”
He added that Arslan’s “prime motivation” was to save himself after killing Ms Bashir, embarking on a “campaign of lies” to conceal what he had done “lying to all and sundry” before disposing her body in a “shocking and callous manner”.
At the sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey this morning, her father Bashir Khan, made an impact statement which was read out in court in which he slammed the "heinous and brutal way" she was treated.
The father spoke of his family's “thick fog of grief” and said they are “deeply devastated” with hearts “broken beyond words”.
He had attended the entire trial and wrote the impact statement on behalf of Ms Bashir’s mother, her four sisters and one brother, all of whom were “too traumatised” to make a statement.
Ms Bashir was the eldest of six siblings and he said his daughter's death had deeply effected his wife who had been hospitalised dealing with her daughter's death.
The court was told that Mr Khan owned a farm in Pakistan but came to the UK to assist with the murder investigation and is now “financially crippled”.
Turning to his experience of attending the trial, Mr Khan said he has had to listen to and see “extremely distressing” evidence.
“Every day I go home I inform my wife what happened in court,” he said.
“As my wife is not emotionally strong enough… I have had to keep some of the distressing details from her.”
He said he has no one else to talk to.
Mr Khan added: “Every day I have to sit in the same room as this man who took Hina away from us.
“I have no words to describe how I felt listening and seeing this vicious man talk about my daughter.
“I felt throughout court he showed no remorse for what he has done.”
The trial heard the pair had grown up in the same village in Pakistan and the defendant followed Ms Bashir months after she came to Britain to study in November 2021.
Prosecutor Gareth Patterson KC said the victim visited Arslan's home to collect some belongings she had left there while moving accommodation on the evening of July 11.
She did not leave the house alive.
Mr Patterson said: "The next morning, the defendant set off from his house, dragging behind him a suitcase containing Hina Bashir's dead body.
"He got a lift from a taxi driver who lived in his house and travelled to an industrial estate by the M25, near Upminster, near a business where he was employed as a warehouse worker.
"He got out of the taxi and dragged his suitcase to the side of a lane where he hid it in some undergrowth. He left the suitcase concealed there in the days that followed."
After Ms Bashir's worried friends and family alerted police, the defendant's suitcase was found and opened, revealing Ms Bashir's body squeezed inside.
Mr Patterson told jurors: "On examination, the pathologist found that a face mask had been pushed inside her mouth. It was found there balled up.
"As for the cause of her death, Hina Bashir had been killed through asphyxia. The facemask that was forced into her mouth had stopped her from breathing."
Investigators found a "wealth of evidence" implicating Arslan in the killing, despite his initial denial, the court heard.
Jurors heard the victim's blood was found on his bed and bedclothes, matching face masks were recovered from his house, and telephone evidence showed the defendant had Ms Bashir's phone and was looking at her messages and photographs in the hours after her final visit.
The taxi driver confirmed he drove Arslan with his heavy suitcase to the industrial estate the next morning, the court was told.
CCTV footage captured Arslan leaving his house with the suitcase and then later dragging it along the lane to where it was eventually discovered, Mr Patterson said.
In addition, Arslan's DNA was identified on the suitcase handle and soil from the deposition site was found on his shoes.
Referring to his earlier guilty plea, Mr Patterson said: "All the evidence proved what the defendant has finally accepted today - that he was responsible for the killing."
Following Arslan's arrest, police found evidence on his phone that he had become close to the victim when she was a teenager growing up in Pakistan.
Mr Patterson said: "The defendant was later to insist to the police that there was no relationship between the two of them. However when the police translated the materials found on his phone, they found that he had been repeatedly in contact with her, declaring his love for Hina Bashir."
He had allegedly spoken about wanting her to be his wife and having a family with her, while other messages suggested she was engaged to another man, the court was told.
Arslan allegedly reacted to the information with "shock" and sent messages to suggest that he thought she had "cheated" on him.
In more recent messages from 2021, Arslan appeared to be trying to contact Ms Bashir by posing as a woman, it was claimed.
Mr Patterson said: "The police also found on his phone a very large number of photographs of Hina Bashir, some of them having been 'photoshopped' or altered using software or apps.
"They found pictures of her on which love hearts had been added and they found collages that had been created of her image. The evidence suggests that he was obsessed with her."
After moving to Britain, the intensity of the defendant's feelings continued and he described her as his fiancee, the court was told.
He enrolled at the University of Essex for a masters degree in data science and applications and working part-time in a warehouse, jurors heard.
Arslan already had masters degree in maths and quantum physics from the University of Faisalabad and had given up a job as the manager of a pharmacy to travel to the UK.
Mr Patterson added: "However, it appears Hina Bashir did not want to be with him and in fact had a relationship after she came here with another young man."
Arslan claimed he had only meant to quieten Ms Bashir after he confronted her over naked photographs of her that he had been sent.
The prosecution rejected his explanation as “elaborate and concocted” and asserted he had killed her out of anger and jealousy.
A jury at the Old Bailey deliberated for five hours and 20 minutes to find him guilty of the charges.
Ms Bashir’s family in court expressed relief as the verdicts were delivered while Arslan stood impassively in the dock with his arms crossed.
Arslan showed no emotion during the hearing and his defence barrister told the court there was “nothing to say” in mitigation.
Six jurors returned to the court to listen to the sentencing.
Today, Judge Richard Marks KC sentenced him to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years for the murder and five years running concurrent for perverting the course of justice.
