LONDON: A “manipulative husband will spend at least 26 years in prison for murdering his estranged wife after she rejected his orders on how to live her life. Mohammed Anhar Ali, originally from Bangladesh, could not accept his marriage to Nazia Ali had irretrievably broken down, so waited for their two young daughters to go to bed before springing from a cupboard where he had been hiding to ambush Mrs Ali in her own home.
His murder trial at the Old Bailey heard 25-year-old Mrs Ali was a Muslim but wanted her girls and herself to live a more Western lifestyle – rejecting Ali’s strict rules on how she had to behave, according to an Asian Image report.
Jurors were told Ali, 32, had spent around 10 hours hiding in a cupboard having let himself into Mrs Ali’s flat in Ellesmere Road, Bow, east London, when she and the children were out before pouncing on his wife, punching her several times and strangling her with a scarf.
Bloodied, he then got into bed to sleep next to his children, only alerting the police the next morning – when he greeted them holding a cup of tea.
His daughters – now six and three – have “failed to grasp the finality” of their mother’s death, the court heard, with the youngest one regularly going “looking for her”, while the older child “blames herself” for not waking up during the attack.
Sentencing Ali, of Blake Avenue, Barking, Her Honour Judge Wendy Joseph QC said: “Ali was a strict Muslim and required of her a lifestyle that she found intolerable.
“He could not accept this was, sadly, a bad marriage. There was evidence of his being manipulating and overbearing towards Nazia.
Ali showed no emotion as he was sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum term of 26 years – less time spent on remand – before being considered eligible for parole. He turned briefly to acknowledge a relative in the public gallery before being led from the dock to begin the jail term.