Denholme murder: Mohammed Feazan Ayaz was stripped naked, tortured and beaten

Mr Ayaz, 20, of Duckworth Grove, Manningham, Bradford, died from a traumatic head injury after he was stripped naked, punched, slapped and kicked at unit 2 of Denholme Business Centre, Halifax Road, on June 30 and July 1 last year.

Raheel Khan, aged 27, of no fixed address; Robert Wainwright, aged 26, of Mannville Terrace, Bradford; and Suleman Khan, aged 20, of Sandford Road, Bradford, were found guilty by an all-female jury at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

DENHOLME MURDER TRIAL: 

There were tense scenes in court as Wainwright attacked fellow defendant Suleman Khan in the secure dock after the jury went out to continue their deliberations yesterday. Wainwright also had to be restrained by security guards inside the secure dock when he was sent down after being found guilty yesterday.

They were remanded in custody to be sentenced this morning along with Shoaib Shafiq (below), 20, of Gladstone Street, Bradford, who was convicted of assisting an offender.

A 17-year-old male, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was also found guilty of assisting an offender and will be sentenced at a later date.

Stephen Queeney, aged 34, of Junction Row, Bradford, and Junaid Hussain, aged 28, of Silverhill Road, Bradford, were both acquitted of murder.

Mr Ayaz, nicknamed Fizzy, arrived at unit 2 that fateful night with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a bottle of Coke which he had bought on the way. He had been drinking them after being invited to “chill out” with Raheel Khan, who he considered a friend, the court heard.

CCTV from the business centre showed Mr Ayaz arriving at 8.32pm carrying two bottles. He drank alcohol and smoked cannabis when he arrived.

At 10.15pm, he was seen leaving Unit 2 looking unsteady on his feet and colliding with the walls.

Raheel Khan was in hiding at unit 2 after being on the run from police at the time because he was wanted on suspicion of a conspiracy to possess a shotgun with intent to cause fear of violence. He saw unit 2 as a safe haven.

It was also the location from which he ran a drug dealing business, which also involved fellow defendants Suleman Khan, Wainwright, Shafiq and the 17-year-old youth.

What followed was a prolonged and brutal attack on Mr Ayaz by the men at the unit. He was dragged from the centre’s corridor into unit 2 where the beating continued.

Mr Ayaz was punched to the head, kicked and was even kicked in the testicles, suffering 70 injuries to his body.

The pathologist noted he had been “punched, slapped, kicked or stamped upon”.

He also had lacerations to his ear, chest and buttock. His other injuries included two black eyes, bruising to his ears, to the inside of his mouth, a number of lacerations and deep bruising to his scalp.

Raheel Khan filmed the beatings on Mr Ayaz, saying he wanted to humiliate him after he threatened to distribute consensual sex videos on a mobile phone featuring Raheel Khan, which he had given him. Raheel thought Mr Ayaz had deleted the videos. He wanted to teach Mr Ayaz a lesson.

Raheel Khan took him in a choke hold until he became unconscious. There was also a still image of Mr Ayaz lying naked on the floor.

At one point during his beating, Mr Ayaz was coming round and saying “watch now I am going to put (videos) out”. This led to Raheel losing his temper, punching Mr Ayaz in his face, punching him to ground, slapping him, and stripping him naked.

Chilling videos of the beatings were recorded on a mobile phone by Suleman Khan and Raheel Khan.

A further disgusting video of Wainwright urinating on Mr Ayaz as he lay on the floor was also recorded.

During his spell in the witness box, Raheel Khan claimed Mr Ayaz was a bit loud, and confided in him that he had lung cancer. Raheel Khan told him to “chill out and he cried, he was fed up with his life. He was hugging me. We went back into other room, food arrived”.

The neck of a bottle of Hennessy cognac had also been inserted into Mr Ayaz’s anus.

The video clips of Mr Ayaz being tortured and beaten were recovered from Raheel Khan’s phone that was hidden in a garden in Barkerend Road, Bradford, the jury heard.

Mr Ayaz’s body was then wrapped in a white curtain and a convoy of two cars featuring the defendants, in a grey Ford S Max and a black Smart Car, drove to Saffron Drive, Allerton, Bradford, where his body was unravelled and dumped face down in the road adjacent to a bus stop.

Police found the room had blood-stained walls and some of the gang had cleaned up the unit after returning from dumping Mr Ayaz’s body.

Akaash Rafiq was present in Unit 2 at the business centre at the time of the killing. He was not a defendant in the case because the police had been unable to find him.

The verdicts were reached after 18 hours of deliberations, spread over five days, by the jury, on the 28th day of the trial. All three found guilty of murder; Suleman Khan, Raheel Khan and Wainwright, gave evidence during the trial, which began on January 14. The other four defendants opted against giving evidence during the trial.

Suleman Khan revealed when he gave evidence that he had taken a lot of cocaine on the night of the murder, more than he usually would have.

Growing up in Saltaire and gaining A star grades at GCSE, Raheel Khan built up an enterprise drug trafficking in Lancashire in partnership with Akaash Rafiq.

Khan leased unit 2 so he could sort out his drugs and chill with others.

He had been there about three weeks before Fizzy was killed overnight between June 30 and July 1 last year.

Trial judge Mr Justice Goss will sentence the four men at 10.30am today.

Hussain was at the unit that night but was not recorded taking part in any violence on Mr Ayaz (pictured below right). Hussain was drinking alcohol and taking drugs in the unit on the night of the attack, the trial heard.

Queeney, who worked at another unit at the centre, had initially gone to police voluntarily, revealing details of what he had seen at the unit on the night of the attack. He was subsequently arrested. He visited the unit three times that night and brought a mop and bucket to help with the clean-up operation at the request of Raheel Khan.

After yesterday’s convictions, Michael Quinn, from the CPS, condemned the brutal gang who even recorded Mr Ayaz begging them to just let him die.

Mr Quinn said: “This was a prolonged and utterly brutal attack on an entirely defenceless victim.

“Over the course of several hours, he was systematically and sadistically beaten to death on a concrete floor.

“He was stripped naked by his captors, he was tortured and humiliated, and he was beaten for the entertainment of those present. “On several occasions they used their mobile telephones to film him in his torment, capturing even a moment in which he begged them to just let him die.

“We worked closely with West Yorkshire Police to build a robust prosecution case, which included the examination of many hours of CCTV footage and analysis of mobile phone footage.

“The defendants have now been found guilty and will be sentenced tomorrow.

“Our thoughts remain with the victim’s family and friends, as they have been throughout.”

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