Iron Miah shooting: Three guilty of 'brutal execution'

Iron Miah was found with a gunshot wound to the head in Whitechapel

Three men have been found guilty of the "brutal execution" of a convicted east London drug dealer.

Mohammed Ali, 31, from Dagenham, Antonio Afflick-McLeod, 32, from Ilford, and Aaron Campbell, 32, from west London, were all found guilty of the murder of Iron Miah.

The Old Bailey heard that Miah, 40, was shot in the head in November 2019 and died two days later.

In 2014 Miah was convicted of conspiring to supply Class A drugs.

He was released from prison in April 2019, seven months before his murder.

The evidence suggested that on his release father-of-two Miah had "gone back to his old ways", said prosecutor Crispin Aylett KC.

One of the suspects in his murder had claimed to police that Miah had owed someone £500,000, the trial heard.

"If that is right, someone, somewhere, might well have wanted something done about that," Mr Aylett said.

The court heard that after returning home on the evening of 19 November 2019, Miah received a series of telephone calls and texts.

After telling his daughter he was going to the shops, Miah was then seen on CCTV getting into the back of a Honda Civic car parked nearby.

Miah was in the car for about a minute and then went to the shops to buy some food for himself and his daughter.

As he made his way home along Nelson Street, he passed a black Volkswagen Polo, and a CCTV camera caught the passenger door of that vehicle opening.

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"The prosecution allege that in the time that the passenger was out of the car he had run towards Iron Miah and then shot him in the head," said Mr Aylett.

"This was, you might think, a most brutal execution - and one which appears to have involved a certain amount of planning."

One of men accused of the murder, Mohammed Ali, had "tricked" Miah into leaving his house by getting him to inspect something, most likely drugs, in the Honda Civic car, the trial heard.

"One consequence of such a ruse would be that anyone lying in wait to shoot Iron Miah dead would be able to get a good look at him," said Mr Aylett.

At trial only one of the defendants, Ali, gave evidence. He accepted being present at the murder scene, but said he was only involved in setting up a drug deal.

The court heard there had been two previous trials involving the three defendants.

In 2021 a jury was unable to reach a verdict, while a retrial in October 2022 collapsed in "remarkable circumstances" after a witness was found to have provided false evidence.

The latest trial started in November, with the jury returning verdicts after 16 hours of deliberations.

Sentencing was adjourned until 16 January.

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