The son of a Nigerian government official was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment for raping and murdering a prostitute.
Bala Chinda killed Jessica McGraa, also a Nigerian, in February 2016, a few weeks after he arrived in Scotland to study at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, according to Daily Mail
The 37-year-old £200-an-hour sex worker’s partially clothed body was found the following day in the bedroom of a flat she had rented in the city’s Union Terrace.
CCTV footage showed she had travelled to Chinda’s student accommodation in the city’s King Street with him in a taxi before they returned to her apartment a short time later.
On Friday, a jury of eight women and seven men unanimously found Chinda guilty of raping and murdering the mother of one and stealing her two mobile phones in an attempt to evade justice.
The Nigerian, whose father works as the immigration attaché at the Nigerian embassy in Beijing, wept uncontrollably after he was found guilty by the jury.
The court heard that Miss McGraa died of asphyxiation and was probably smothered with a pillow and possibly strangled with her scarf.
The taxi driver taking Chinda and Miss McGraa back to her apartment had heard the two discussing money before she was killed on February 11.
Chinda changed his phone number after her death.
Miss McGraa moved to the UK 11 years ago after meeting an English oil worker, Gareth McGraa, who had been working in a Nigerian company.
They married and had a 7-year old son but later split.