TWO avengers traversed three countries to hunt down and kill a compatriot to settle a long-standing family feud, ultimately stabbing him to death in a dark alley in Budaiya.
The men were sentenced to life in prison yesterday for premeditated murder by the High Criminal Court after they travelled all the way to Bahrain from Pakistan to kill the victim.
Judges ruled that the murder weapons – two kitchen knives – be confiscated and ordered that the two Pakistanis be deported after completing their 25‑year sentence.
The suspects, aged 25 and 28, confessed to killing the victim’s brother in Greece over the same long‑running feud, which stemmed from the murder of their cousin more than a decade ago.
The court heard that victim Wasif Ahmed had served 12 years in prison for the cousin’s murder, but was not forgiven by the man’s family, who made several attempts on his life. He later moved to Bahrain seeking safety with his other brother.
The two defendants had tracked him diligently for six weeks, even following him to Saudi Arabia when he went to perform Umrah pilgrimage.
On December 28, the duo surrounded the victim in a dimly-lit residential alley in Budaiya and attacked him with sharpened knives, only stopping their onslaught when he was dead.
Just three hours after the brutal murder, the two Pakistanis were arrested while they were attempting to flee the country via the King Fahad Causeway after an alert was issued concerning the incident.
The GDN previously reported that Mr Ahmed’s surviving brother, 50, claimed that the victim was not a murderer and had been exonerated of the murder conviction after spending 12 years in prison.
He stated that he brought him to Bahrain on a tourist visa to escape the revenge killing. However, he was killed five days after returning from Umrah.
His two now-deceased brothers had fled Pakistan seeking safety, but the vengeance-fuelled suspects crossed continents and borders to perform their grim ‘duty’.
In a previous hearing, a medical examiner who inspected the crime scene and conducted the victim’s autopsy told judges that the victim was motionless on the ground just 20 seconds after the attack began.
He stated that Mr Ahmed sustained injuries to the head, face, chest, back, limbs and the area between his waist and arms, as well as fractures and both internal and external bleeding.
The doctor further observed an array of stab wounds all over the man’s body.
“The injuries that the victim suffered to his head alone were enough to kill him, without even taking into account all the other wounds he was left with,” he earlier testified.
Forensic experts found the victim’s blood on both the knife and the cleaver, and also recovered his blood from under the 25-year-old defendant’s fingernails and on the 28-year-old defendant’s trousers.
A young Egyptian barber who said he witnessed the murder also testified in the case.
He told the court that he was walking home from work while speaking to his mother on the phone and was on his way to buy a cup of chai karak when he heard screams coming from an alley.
“I saw two people with sharp implements attacking the victim,” the 20-year-old expat said. “I yelled at them and they ran away, but one returned to the crime scene to retrieve his bag.”
In the previous hearing, a Public Prosecution representative described the murder as an ‘execution’.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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