A man who killed his wife by deliberately setting her alight after they had a row at their home in Birmingham has been jailed for life.
Muhammad Hammad tried to cover up what he had done by claiming care worker Nazia Akhtar had set light to herself and said he had made a valiant attempt to save her. But a jury at Birmingham Crown Court rejected his account and convicted him of murder.
Judge Melbourne Inman QC ordered that Hammad spend a minimum of 25 years in prison before being considered for release. The judge said Hammad had given an account of having tried to help his wife and then becoming alight himself. But he said the defendant had, in fact, poured the spirit over his own head and set it alight in a bid to make it look like it had been a “terrible accident that engulfed you both.”
Judge Inman said, though, that he accepted that it had not been a planned attack.
The court had heard the couple had met in 2013 and married in an Islamic ceremony in September 2014.
Hammad moved into her first floor flat in Fox Hollies Road, Acocks Green. They had a volatile relationship with most of the arguments centring on the fact that Mrs Akhtar’s family did not like the defendant and he did not like them.
James Curtis QC, prosecuting, said the biggest bone of contention and a “running sore” was Hammad’s relationship with his mother-in-law.
Nazia had also threatened to throw her husband out as well as begin divorce proceedings which would have scuppered his chances of getting a British visa.
She said that on the day of the fire they had rowed about their marriage being over and he had called her a “fat ugly cow.” After the incident both were taken to hospital and the victim had initially claimed what happened was an accident. However her account changed and she began to tell people what had really occurred.
