In what prosecutors have described as a “horrific crime”, Mujahid Arshid and his accomplice, his employee Vincent Tappu, kidnapped his niece and another lady, raped them and cut their throats.
Celine Dookhran, 20 years of age was dating a Libyan Muslim. Her uncle however fantasized about her and seeing he could not have her planned to kidnap her. A day before the murder a family meeting took place. Arshid was in attendance armed with an axe, They urged Celine to end her relationship, wanting her to marry a Pakistani, not a Libyan.
The crime happened on July 19th, 2017. During the case Crispin Aylett Qc the prosecutors, warned jurors “The evidence that gives rise to those charges is, I am afraid, simply horrific. You will have to steel yourselves for what is to come.”
On July 19th Arshid and his employee Tappu broke into Miss Dookhran’s room and bundled her and the other lady plugging their mouths with socks and duct taping the socks then binding their hands and feet before wrapping them in a builders dust sheet. Before being taken to a six-bedroom house that Arshid, a builder, had been working at, the Old Bailey heard.
He allegedly took the second victim – who cannot be named for legal reasons – upstairs and raped her, before doing the same thing to Miss Dookhran.
Mr. Aylett said: “In the bathroom of that house, he cut Celine’s throat, most likely with the lock knife.
With her mouth still stuffed with a sock, Celine died from the combined effect of the restriction of her airwaves and the blood that she lost.”
Arshid then took the second woman, in her 20s, upstairs and cut her throat, telling her she would be “dead within 10 minutes.”
He put Celine’s body into the deep freezer and locked it with a padlock, but the second woman survived and was later taken to the hospital, where she gave the police details who then found the house and Miss Dookhran’s body.”
Arshid, was arrested the same night in Folkestone, Kent, where he had fled to.
He denied the murder, attempted murder, two counts of kidnap, two counts of rape, two counts of conspiracy to falsely imprison another, possessing a firearm with intent – a Taser.
He also denied one count of sexual assault, and one count of assault by penetration
Tappu, of Acton, west London, also denied two counts of kidnap, two counts of conspiracy to falsely imprison another, and one count of possessing a firearm with intent.