A man has been jailed for life in the UK after murdering another man in a botched robbery and then fleeing to Pakistan to escape justice.
Tahir Zarif, 31, from Derby, shot Akhtar Javeed, 56, in 2016 while he and three others — Suraj Misty, 26; Lamar Wali, 23; and Sander van Aalten, 54 — attempted to rob Javeed’s food warehouse in Birmingham.
One of the four had previously worked at the warehouse, with knowledge of its layout. Employees at the site were tied up, and Javeed was dragged to his safe, where Zarif shot him in the leg to force him to open it. Javeed then managed to free himself but was shot again by Zarif in the throat and chest as he tried to escape, stumbling out of the warehouse and into a street before collapsing.
Five days later, Zarif left the UK for Pakistan. He was arrested in Mirpur in 2018 and extradited two years later.
Video footage later emerged of Zarif firing a machine gun while on the run in Pakistan, and further footage showed him smiling when formally arrested on board his extradition flight to London by UK police.
Zarif claimed the murder of Javeed was accidental, but his “clear willingness to use the gun” and “intention to kill” saw him jailed for a minimum of 30 years at Coventry Crown Court. His fellow robbers were convicted and sentenced in 2016. —AN
