Life for man who strangled stepmum with headscarf

A man who strangled his stepmother to death with her own headscarf has been jailed for life.

Abdul Sami was told he would serve at least 14 years and 91 days behind bars after being found guilty at Bradford Crown Court of murdering Rizwana Kousar.

The 41-year-old died two days after she was found unconscious at the family home they shared in Kensington Street, Girlington, on 15 August 2023.

Sami, 22, denied murder but the jury took less than three and a half hours to find him guilty and return a unanimous verdict.

The court heard how Sami had called for an ambulance after attacking his stepmother, claiming he had found her "half in and half out" of a bath with her head submerged in the water.

He was given directions to remove her and begin CPR, but prosecutors said paramedics later noticed a red mark across the front of her neck. She never regained consciousness.

A post-mortem examination revealed she died from a brain injury caused by lack of oxygen.

During his trial jurors heard how Sami had visited a number of websites about inheritance in the months before the attack and had also searched: "Does a killer inherit from their victim's estate?".

In a victim impact statement read by prosecutors, Kousar's sister-in-law, Maryam Afzal, said she was "dearly loved by all her family and friends".

She said: "You took her life, for what? Money? And then you lied about it over and over again.

"We can not imagine what Rizwana went through. Was she in pain? Scared? Did she know what was happening to her?"

Afzal added Kousar, who had no children of her own, had loved Sami "like a child of her own".

"Rizwana was warm, kind, she was pure of heart and had such a positive outlook on life. Always trying to see the best in people," she said.

"She had so much to live for. You took it all away."

Passing sentence Mr Justice Mark Turner said: "Your crime has caused profound grief to members of the family.

"You continued and persisted in lying to the court. There were implausibilities and inconsistencies in your account of what happened on that morning."

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