A social media influencer faces life in jail after she was found guilty yesterday of murdering her mother’s young lover and his friend in a high-speed car chase.
Mahek Bukhari, 24, recruited associates to “jump” Saqib Hussain, 21, after he threatened to expose his relationship with Ansreen Bukhari, 46.
Mr Hussain had threatened to tell the older woman’s husband and son about the affair and send them nude pictures he had of her after she ended their three-year relationship a month earlier.
He was “lured” to the meeting on the pretence that the mother and daughter planned to give him back the £3,000 he said he had spent on Mrs Bukhari during their affair.
Instead Mr Hussain and his friend Hashim Ijazuddin, also 21, were ambushed in a Tesco car park and chased by two cars containing eight people, including Bukhari and her mother.
The men from Banbury, Oxfordshire, died in a fireball on the A46 near Leicester in February 2022.
Bukhari, who at the time had 120,000 Tiktok followers and another 43,000 on Instagram, and her mother both denied murder but were found guilty following a three-month trial at Leicester Crown Court.
Jurors deliberated for more than 28 hours before returning verdicts on the women. Bukhari, of Tunstall, Stokeon-Trent, sobbed as she was declared guilty.
Fellow defendants Rekhan Karwan, 29, and Raees Jamal, 23, were also found guilty of murder – while Natasha Akhtar, 23, Ameer Jamal, 27, and Sanaf Gulamustafa, 23, were all found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.
They will be sentenced on September 1. Remanding them in custody, Judge Timothy Spencer warned them: “You know the sentence will be very serious.”
Bukhari dropped out of Manchester Metropolitan University to focus on making videos for TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, in which her mother regularly featured.
In one, she admitted she was motivated by money and said her goal was to pay off her “whole family’s mortgages”.
Prosecutor Collingwood Thompson said the revelation of Ansreen’s affair could have “ended her marriage or damaged her reputation in the community”.
He said the young woman was also afraid it could damage her social media career.
Their trial heard Bukhari was aware of her mother’s affair and was “happy to tolerate it, if not approve of it”.
But when it ended in January 2022 Mr Hussain became “increasingly obsessive, proffering his love for her and begging her to continue the relationship”, jurors were told.
On January 12, he threatened to send a “nude” of Ansreen to her husband and demanded she repay money spent during the affair.
Bukhari’s idea was to lure Mr Hussain into a meeting where he would be forced to hand his phone over so images of Ansreen could be deleted.
But the jury heard that when the two men arrived and saw both Mahek’s Audi TT and a Seat waiting, the pair quickly drove away.
Jurors were played a shocking 999 call Mr Hussain made from the passenger seat of a Skoda Fabia as they were chased up a 70mph dual carriageway – which ended with him screaming and the sound of a collision.
Baker Mr Hussain could be heard telling how the car was being rammed by a vehicle whose occupants wore balaclavas.
He told the handler: “They are trying to ram me off the road… They are trying to kill me.”
Detective Inspector Mark Parish said the masterminds behind the “callous and cold-blooded attack” continually told lies to cover their tracks, adding: “Their only concern during the whole incident and investigation has been for themselves.”
Mr Hussain’s family said they were “grateful the courts saw through all the lies attributed to my son”, while Mr Ijazuddin’s family said their “world came crashing down” when he died.