An obsessive man has been jailed for suffocating a student with a face mask in a jealous rage then dumping her body in undergrowth inside a large suitcase. Muhammad Arslan, 27, forced a floral patterned mask into the mouth of 21-year-old Hina Bashir after she visited his shared flat in Ilford, east London in July last year.
He claimed he had only meant to quieten her 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.
Arslan admitted manslaughter on the first day of his trial but denied murder and perverting the course of justice by concealing Ms Bashir’s body. A jury at the Old Bailey found him guilty of the charges on Wednesday.
