Somaiya Begum: Murdered woman dumped like rubbish, jury told

Somaiya Begum was found dead on wasteland in Bradford on 6 July

A 20-year-old woman was murdered by her uncle and "dumped like rubbish" for refusing a forced marriage, a court was told.

Somaiya Begum's body was found wrapped in a rug on land near Fitzwilliam Street, Bradford, on 6 July.

Prosecutors at Bradford Crown Court told the jury Mohammed Taroos Khan, 53, killed her at her home in Binnie Street, Bradford, on 25 June last year.

Mr Khan denies murder, but has admitted perverting the course of justice.

Opening the prosecution case, Jason Pitter KC said that Ms Begum, who was a university student, was living at the house in Binnie Street with another of her uncles and her grandmother under the terms of a Forced Marriage Protection Order.

This was due to attempts by her father to force her to marry a cousin from Pakistan "by threat of violence", he said.

Mr Pitter said there were "fault lines" in the family, adding that these were partly about "the way in which members of the family interpreted their cultural or religious obligations".

It may be that Mr Khan's defence "advances issues in relation to the family's culture and religion which may have been the misguided justification to kill her," he said.

"We suppose in the context of the inappropriately named 'honour killing'.

"Whatever it was .... it was not honourable."

He said when her body was discovered it was so decomposed it was not possible to find a cause of death but there was an 4inch (11cm) metal spike embedded in her chest which had punctured her lung.

Mr Pitter said the defendant was caught on CCTV pulling up alongside a gap in a wall on Fitzwilliam Street and dragging a large and apparently heavy item from the car onto the waste ground.

"That was obviously Somaiya," he told the jury.

The murder trial at Bradford Crown Court is expected to last three weeks

Zafar Ali KC, defending, told the jurors there will be times in the trial when they will be "utterly sickened" by what they hear, including "the terrible way (Miss Begum's) body was just dumped like rubbish".

Mr Ali said: "No-one could deny that the attack on Somaiya on June 25 last year was both terrible and unforgivable."

But the barrister told the jury: "Mohammed Taroos Khan accepts that Somaiya Begum, his niece, was murdered but he did not murder her.

"He knew nothing about the death until after Somaiya had been killed."

Mr Ali said his client had been "summoned" to Binnie Street "to dispose of her body".

The trial is expected to last three weeks.