Arsonist Shahid Mohammed 'most evil and wicked' killer detective has seen By John Henry

BBC News, Yorkshire Published duration 6 August 2019

image copyright West Yorkshire Police image caption Shahid Mohammed was extradited from Pakistan in October 2018

Killer arsonist Shahid Mohammed was one of the "most evil and wicked I have encountered in all my years in the police", a senior detective has said.

Mohammed is due to be sentenced later for killing eight people in a firebomb attack on a house in Birkby, Huddersfield, in 2002.

He fled to Pakistan but was extradited in October 2018 and convicted at Leeds Crown Court on Tuesday

Det Ch Supt Nick Wallen said Mohammed had never shown any contrition.

Mohammed killed five children, their mother, uncle and grandmother in the fire in the early hours of 12 May 2002.

The prosecution said the 37-year-old carried out the fire attack with other men, because of a family dispute.

'Heinous and wicked'

Mr Wallen said Mohammed left the UK and went to Pakistan where he lived for 13 years, setting up a business, getting married and having a family.

"It would be true to say that nobody there could have imagined that he was responsible for such a heinous and wicked act here in Huddersfield," the detective said.

image copyright West Yorkshire Police image caption Det Ch Supt Nick Wallen said Shahid Mohammed had shown no remorse for the deaths of eight people

Mohammed had turned his back on the events of 17 years ago, when four petrol bombs filled with metal nuts were thrown through the windows of a house in Osborne Road and fuel was poured through the letter box.

The arsonist had tried to "shield and hide away his true identity in Pakistan", Mr Wallen said.

But dogged determination by a succession of senior officers at West Yorkshire Police saw him tracked down and arrested in Pakistan in January 2015. He was eventually extradited more than three-and-a-half years later.

Mr Wallen said during his career he had dealt with "acts of wickedness that we see sadly all too regularly".

"But for somebody to conspire with others, to get together with other people, to plan and plot to firebomb a house where they knew there were lots of people inside and to create the level of suffering that they obviously knew would happen is right up there with the most evil and wicked I have ever encountered in all my years in the police," he said.

image copyright West Yorkshire Police image caption (L-R) Rab Nawaz Khan, father of the five children who died in the fire in Huddersfield, with Ateeqa Nawaz, Rabia Batool, Nafeesa Aziz (the children’s mother) and Tayyaba Batool

Asked if there had ever been any contrition from Mohammed, or any form of understanding of what he had done, Mr Wallen said: "No, quite simply, no.

"Indeed throughout the trial Shahid Mohammed has sought to play down his involvement, sought to make us believe that he really played a very minor role in it.

"We've even seen crocodile tears during the trial.

"He has done nothing, nothing whatsoever, to try to gain any support or forgiveness from the family, none whatsoever.

"There are no more serious cases than this."

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