Jailed for life: Murderers ambushed young father in street

Two men have been jailed for life after a young father was shot dead in the West Midlands.

Shamrez Khan and Tahir Zaman fired a total of 10 shots at 26-year-old Murtaza Nazir in Bagshaw Road, in the Stechford area of Birmingham, on the evening of 28 August last year.

Three of those bullets hit their victim in the back and despite the efforts of paramedic,s Mr Nazir, who had a 10-month-old child, was declared dead at the scene.

Khan, aged 23, and 29-year-old Zaman had denied murder but were convicted at Birmingham Crown Court on Tuesday following a six-week trial.

West Midlands Police detectives pieced together the killers’ movements on the day of the shooting by painstakingly reviewing almost 1,000 pieces of CCTV from dozens of locations.

Some of this showed a black VW Golf repeatedly circling the streets around Bagshaw Road in the hours before the murder, as Mr Nazir’s killers planned the murder and carried out reconnaissance observations of the area.

Then, just after Mr Nazir parked up in the road, a Seat Leon in convoy with a Dacia Duster arrived, both on false plates, one stopping in front of Mr Nazir, the other behind.

Khan and Zaman got out of the cars and the fatal shots were fired. A post mortem showed that each one of the three shots which hit Mr Nazir would have proved fatal and forensics experts found at least six bullet holes in the Mitsubishi, with bullets and bullet fragments also being recovered from inside the car.

Leaving Mr Nazir in the road, Khan and Zaman raced away from the scene and headed to units more than four miles away on an industrial estate in Small Heath.

There, a man in an unusual top, with goggles in its hood, was caught on CCTV getting out of the Seat. Earlier in the day CCTV had already captured Khan arriving at those units in the same distinctive top.

Police believe the two vehicles were then cut up and disposed of there and during a search of the units forensics experts recovered a parcel shelf from a Seat Leon and car mats from a Dacia Duster.

The footage also established that although Khan deliberately left his phone at home during the time of the murder, the men involved were seen using walkie-talkies to communicate with each other.

Police also retrieved a discarded cigarette butt from one of the units and a DNA profile matching that of Zaman was found on it.

Complex

Khan, of Poppy Grove in Saltley, and Zaman of Yardley Green Road, Birmingham, were also found guilty of perverting the course of justice, and sentenced to life in prison. They were told they will spend at least 35 years behind bars.

A third man Kashif Arshad, aged 26, of Fox Hollies Road, Hall Green, who was accused of dismantling and disposing of two cars, was found not guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Detective Inspector Jim Mahon, from the force's CID department, said: "This was a highly complex investigation involving a trawl of CCTV footage which is one of the largest ever carried out by West Midlands Police.

"With the support of residents and businesses in the area we were able to gather almost 1,000 items of CCTV which we pieced together to establish the events of that tragic day.

"Murtaza was a much-loved young man and I commend his family for attending the trial and listening to the harrowing evidence about this murder.

"Guns were brought onto a residential street in a planned attack which took the life of this young father.

"Those involved were then helped to try and conceal their actions but we were able to unravel their movements and compile a compelling case.

"Although we cannot be sure what was behind this fatal shooting we will always strive to bring those who carry out such violence to justice.

"As such our investigation does continue to identify others involved in Murtaza’s murder and those who assisted them."