Zobaidah Salangy: Wife murdered and body dumped in woodland

Zobaidah Salangy was reported missing in March 2020 and her body was found more than six months later

A man has been found guilty of murdering his wife before dumping her body in an unmarked woodland grave.

Nezam Salangy, 44, murdered Zobaidah Salangy in March 2020 and buried her body near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire with the help of his two brothers.

Mrs Salangy's body was not found for more than six months, despite a police dig in the area.

Salangy, of Bromsgrove, was unanimously convicted after a six-week trial but continued to claim he had been framed.

As he was led from the dock at Worcester Crown Court he said police had framed him and a commotion afterwards triggered the court's security alarm.

Salangy, of Talbot Road, had reported his 28-year-old wife of eight years missing after her death and told officers at the time she had gone out for a run "and never come back" and that she had left him for "a new boyfriend".

The trial heard they had "argued bitterly" on 27 March, the day before Mrs Salangy disappeared.

Her body was not found until October 2020 in woodland near Lower Bentley. Officers had searched the area months before in April but the dig did not go deep enough, the trial heard.

Because of this, it was impossible to establish her cause of death.

'Horrendous crime'

She had been bound in curtain wire and wrapped in black bin bags along with a duvet cover, which matched pillow cases at the couple's home.

Nezam Salangy, Mohammed Yasin Salangi and Ramin Salangi will be sentenced next month.

Police also found her phone hidden in the pizza shop run by her husband, along with a second device thought to have been used to arrange to hide her body with his brothers.

Mohammed Ramin Salangy, 31, and Mohammed Yasin Salangy, 33, were convicted of assisting an offender.

The elder brother had travelled more than 90 miles by taxi from the home they shared in Adamscroft Place, Cardiff, to help bury Mrs Salangy.

None of the defendants gave evidence in their defence and the 11 jurors reached their guilty verdicts in just under 14 hours.

Mrs Salangy had been a maths teacher in Afghanistan and had an arranged marriage with her husband in November 2012, moving to the UK the following year.

"This was a horrendous crime and I am glad to see that Salangy and his brothers will now pay the price for their actions," Det Ch Insp Mark Peters, from West Mercia Police, said.

"A young woman died and two children are now growing up without both parents."

The brothers are due to be sentenced next month.