Killer gets 18 years for 1997 ‘Curry Wars’ murder

A ‘curry wars’ assassin who hacked a takeaway boss to death with a meat cleaver in 1997 was jailed for at least 18 years today (Fri).

Foyjur Rahman, 44, was matched to the horrific murder of Abdul Samad, 25, by traces of DNA on a scarf he had left at the scene.

Rahman, who also owned a takeaway, left the country a day after the killing but was eventually traced to the US and extradited to stand trial.

He denied involvement but the Old Bailey jury convicted him of inflicting wounds described by a doctor as some of the worst he had ever seen.

Mr Samad owned ‘Curry in a Hurry’ and was asked to act as an intermediary for a group of Bangladeshi businessmen who were in dispute with a gang known as ‘the Stoke Newington Boys’.

Prosecutor Mark Ellison QC said: ‘The victim had resisted the pressure and declined to get involved and he had been threatened with violence, but still he refused to get involved.

‘He was told he would “get it” if he didn’t help.’

Mr Samad was lured to in Canonbury, north London, with a bogus takeaway order late in the evening on 21 May 1997.

The address given was that of Lord Falconer, the then Solicitor General and close friend of Tony Blair.

Before he could even knock on the door at (34) Alwyne Road he was pounced upon by Rahman and another curry house owner, Mohiuddin Bablu.

The two men were wearing scarves wrapped around their faces with eye holes cut out.

They chased the victim down the road, lashing out with the meat cleavers until he fell to the ground seriously wounded, still clutching the curry.

Residents in the exclusive street heard the victim screaming for help.

Frances Tookey who was at home on the night of the murder: ‘I was in bed watching Newsnight when I heard a commotion outside.

‘I went to the window to see two men swinging what appeared to be baseball bats at someone on the ground, and I called to my husband to phone the police.

‘The men swaggered down the road when they stopped and turned back to the man on the ground to finish him off. I saw the glint of what I believe to be a knife with a ten inch blade.’

She added: ‘It was scary and shocking. I will always remember [the murder] even though it was nineteen years ago.’

Another neighbour, John Swannell chased the assailants but lost them amongst bushes in a residential garden – he then returned to the dying man.

He said: ‘I held his hand and spoke to him, he could only murmur before his eyes rolled and he lost consciousness.’

Mr Samad suffered 18 knife wounds, described by one doctor as ‘horrific, the like of which I have never seen in my career, and several of which would have been live threatening on their own.’

One single gash to his upper body was four inches wide, the court heard.

Mr Samad died three hours later in the early hours of the morning on 22 May.

After the attack, the killers fled the scene in the company of two other men, discarding their scarves and one of the cleavers.

One scarf yielded a DNA match of Rahman, jurors were told, while the second was linked to Bablu.

Rahman and Bablu drove with a friend to Bablu’s sister’s house in Birmingham where they spent the night.

They asked Bablu’s brother-in-law to do an internet search of murders in Islington, while Rahman booked his flights to the US.

Bablu was extradited from Bangladesh in early 2012 and jailed for 18 uears after he was convicted of Mr Samad’s murder at the Old Bailey in March that year.

Rahman of formerly of Parfett Street, Whitechapel, insisted he was not present and had nothing to do with the killing.

He was later jailed for a minimum of 18 years for the ‘ferocious’ murder.

Judge Peter Rook told him: ‘You committed this offence this offence when you were a young man aged 26 some 19 years ago.

‘You were part of the attacking party that went from your restaurant with lethal weapons to Aldwine Road that terrible night the 21-22 May 1997, going there with the intention of killing Abdul Samad.

‘Together with others you deprived him of his most precious possession: life itself.’

More than 3,000 people attended Mr Samad’s funeral procession after his brutal murder which shocked the community and still ‘haunts’ his relatives.

Judge Rook said: ‘He was known for his generosity of spirit.

‘The murder has and continues to haunt his family. It has had a profound affect upon all of them: daughters deprived of their father from an early age, a deeply traumatised wife, parents who incurred pain and anguish as a result of your actions.’

He continued: ‘I’m sure that you were one of the two attackers in the Aldwine Road and Aldwine Villas, the other was Mohiuddin Bablu who received a sentence of 18 years, tried separately at this court in 2012.’

Rahman, formerly of Odessa, Texas, has already served seven months and five days of his sentence in prison.