Jurors deliberated for more than 28 hours before returning the guilty verdicts on Friday.
Fellow defendants Rekhan Karwan and Raees Jamal were also found guilty of two counts of murder - while Natasha Akhtar, Ameer Jamal and Sanaf Gulamustafa were all found not guilty of murder, but guilty of two counts of manslaughter.
Co-accused Mohammed Patel was found not guilty of murder or manslaughter.
During the three-month retrial, the jury heard the victims were in a Skoda chased by Audi and Seat vehicles containing the eight defendants.
Mahek Bukhari, 24, was said to have taken part in an ambush after Mr Hussain threatened to use sexually explicit material to expose a long-running affair he had with her mother.
The court was told Mr Ijazuddin’s car “split in two” and caught fire after hitting a tree at the Six Hills junction in the early hours of February 11 2022.
In a 999 call to police made by front-seat passenger Mr Hussain moments before his death, he said their car was being “rammed off the road” by balaclava-wearing assailants in two pursuing cars.
Blimey … like a scene from a movie … but with terrible and tragic results …
No doubt lengthy sentences will be handed out to the murderers …
Read the article and I’m still confused. They rammed men off the road to their death. Then drove back to the scene? Were they expecting no one to notice? Or they didn’t care about getting caught? Sounds so bizarre.
they were hyped up perhaps with drugs ; the aroma of success ; or just excessive and prolong mania and a smidgen of 'there is nothing to beat the fury of a woman scorned?
All in all, seven people were convicted of either murder or manslaughter over their role in the deaths of 21-year-olds Saqib Hussain and Hashim Ijazuddin:
Mahek Bukhari, 24 - murder
Ansreen Bukhari, 46 - murder
Rekan Karwan, 29 - murder
Raees Jamal, 23 - murder
Natasha Akhtar, 23 - manslaughter
Ameer Jamal, 28 - manslaughter
Sanaf Gulamustafa, 23 - manslaughter
Co-accused Mohammed Patel was found not guilty of murder or manslaughter.
The judge now addresses Ansreen Bukhari in court. He says “you are the grown-up adult” in the group of defendants, and she should have behaved like one. He continues there were “so many instances you could have put a stop to this unfolding tragedy” but she allowed events to escalate. “At every turn you made the wrong choice,” he adds.
Judge Timothy Spencer KC says he regards Mahek Bukhari as “immature below your years”. He says he has watched her over the course of the trial and says the “pressure of this case has caused you to behave inappropriately”. “Your fame through your career as an influencer has made you utterly self-obsessed with a wholly unjust sense of self-entitlement,” he adds. He says she seems to have no awareness of the damage she does.
Mahek Bukhari, Ansreen Bukhari, Rekan Karwan and Raees Jamal are all sentenced to life, which is mandatory for murder.
Social media influencer Mahek Bukhari, 24, has been sentenced to a minimum of 31 years and eight months in jail for the murder of Saqib Hussain and Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin. The 332 days she has spent on remand will be deducted from that.
Ansreen Bukhari, 46 has been jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 26 years and nine months. The 332 days she has spent on remand will be deducted from that.
Rekan Karwan, 29 has been sentenced to life with a minimum term of 26 years and 10 months, with 362 days on remand to be deducted.
Raees Jamal, 23, who we can now report is serving a rape sentence, is sentenced to life with a minimum term of 36 years and 45 days, with 30 days on remand to be deducted
The judge took in mitigation for all four defendants found guilty of murder that they had not set out with the intention to kill.
Well, those sentences are certainly lengthy - the young people will be old when they are released and the mother may die in jail …
Two young men, however, will never grow old and their mothers and fathers will suffer a remaining lifetime of loss …
The remaining defendants have been sentenced for manslaughter.
Natasha Akhtar, 23, sentenced to 11 years eight months imprisonment Ameer Jamal, 28, sentenced to 14 years eight months imprisonment Sanaf Gulamustafa, 23, sentenced to 14 years nine months imprisonment
They may have just got “caught up in the action” but there’s a price to pay …
