A convicted sex offender was today found guilty of murdering two women whose bodies were found stuffed inside a freezer in his flat.
Zahid Younis, 35, battered Henriett Szucs, 34, to death in 2016 then stored the body of Mihrican Mustafa, 38, in the same freezer two years later when he strangled her.
When police caught up with Younis, they found the bodies had been frozen for so long at his flat in Canning Town, East London, that they had become fused together.
The killer has a history of abusing women and was previously jailed for getting a child bride pride pregnant when she was 14 after marrying her in a mosque.
He showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out while members of Ms Mustafa’s family, who attended every day of the three-week trial, said ‘yes’ in the public gallery.
Her older sister, Mel Mustafa, said: ‘Thank you God, thank you.’ The judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, told Younis she will sentence him later this afternoon.
The bodies of Henriett Szucs (left) and Mihrican Mustafa (right) were found together in London
Forensics officers leave the flat in Canning Town, East London, in April 2019 following the grim discovery in the freezer, where the bodies of the two women had fused together
Police visited him at the tiny one-bedroom flat he rented as a registered sex offender in 2016, not knowing the body of Ms Szucs was entombed in ice yards away.
The flat was in a mess and they left without interviewing Younis after he told the officers he was using a bucket as a makeshift toilet.
Hungarian sex worker Ms Szucs disappeared after moving in with Younis and was last seen alive with him in the summer of 2016.
Ms Mustafa had also been visiting Younis before she disappeared in May 2018. Police only found their bodies when Younis fled the flat and was reported missing in April last year.
They had to crowbar open the locked freezer, which had been hidden in the electricity meter cupboard and found the two bodies which were decomposing rapidly after the electricity was cut off.
Ms Mustafa (pictured) had last been seen in May 2018, before the grim discovery in April 2019
Both victims had suffered appalling injuries including multiple broken ribs. Ms Mustafa had suffered a fractured larynx and Ms Szucs’s skull had been fractured.
Younis tried to hijack his trial by firing his lawyer, demanding more time to review case documents and shouting abuse from the dock.
But the jury a Southwark Crown Court in London convicted him of two counts of murder after deliberating for 16 hours and six minutes
Younis, who has flower tattoos on both sides of his neck, had abused girlfriends for many years and left one partner with a broken arm in 2007.
He married a 13-year-old girl in a Walthamstow mosque when he was 20 and admitted unlawful sexual activity with a child the following year in 2005 when she fell pregnant.
Younis also admitted common assault after he put the teenager in a headlock to drag her out of a supermarket.
She was introduced to him when she was 12 and they began a sexual relationship when she was 13.
A year later they were married in an Islamic ceremony at a mosque in Walthamstow.
Younis was given 30 months for having sex with her in 2005 and in 2008 he was jailed for breaking the arm of another teenage lover in three places.
He was sentenced to nearly five years in jail after admitting two counts of wounding and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against the 17-year-old.
Younis left her covered in bruises and isolated from her friends while threatening to set her family home on fire if she confided in anyone about the abuse.
Another girlfriend who went on to have his child was locked in an airing cupboard for hours by Younis.
He also imprisoned her in a telephone box when she tried to call her mother and threatened to throw her in front of a train.
Both of his murder victims were vulnerable women ‘living somewhat chaotic lives’ characterised by periods of homelessness and addiction to class A drugs.
Before she died neighbours had seen Ms Szucs at the flat with a badly bruised face and heard ‘disturbing noises’ coming from the flat.
She had been forced to convert to Islam by Younis but wrote to him begging forgiveness for doubting him saying: ‘I got disillusioned just because of some slaps to the face.’
Neighbours also saw Ms Mustafa with marks around her neck but Younis claimed she had been drinking too much and tried to kill him.
Bodycam material played to the court showed PC Omar Naeem shining a torch through Younis’ abandoned flat to find the locked freezer with a zimmer frame on top of it.
The officer could be heard saying: ‘Wait, there’s a foot there,’ to his colleague before bodies came into view.
Younis claimed Ms Szucs died mysteriously on his sofa and said two men, called Ted Jolley and Tommy Farmer, turned up outside his home with Ms Mustafa’s corpse stuffed in a wheelie bin.
He said they told him to burn Ms Mustafa’s body and dispose of her clothes off Southend Pier in Essex.
He also said he was out when Ms Szucs died at his flat and did not tell police because he was ‘panicking’. He told jurors he did not kill Ms Mustafa and did not know how she died.
Younis also said he paid a man to help him get Ms Szucs’ body into the freezer and that his accomplice later blackmailed him into putting Ms Mustafa’s corpse in the same place.
Duncan Penny, QC, prosecuting, slammed the double killer for telling ‘fairy tales’ and told him: ‘You were responsible for those deaths and the stories about these two characters, with all these elaborations, is nothing more than that. It is a story. It is a yarn. It is a tall tale.’
Mr Penny told jurors: ‘The sad truth in this appalling case is that just like those who survived and who spoke of their experience at the hands of Younis, Henriett Szucs and Mihrican Mustafa were the victims of Zahid Younis.
‘They were murdered by him and their bodies were treated with the same disrespect and indignity by him.
‘He will not face up to what he has done because he has demonstrated in this process, and let’s face it, over the years, because he is capable only of thinking of himself and capable of going to any length to protect himself.’
Younis, who hobbled into court each day using crutches, denied but was convicted of two counts of murder.
Detective Chief Inspector Simon Harding, of the Metropolitan Police, said: ‘Zahid Younis is a particularly dangerous and what I would describe as a repugnant individual who preys on vulnerable women in particular and abuses them, brings them into his control and causes them significant injury.’
Mr Harding said the officer was acting on ‘an old-fashioned police hunch’ when he discovered the women’s bodies, which had started to decompose after periods when the flat’s electricity had been cut off.
Police on the scene outside the flat in Canning Town in April 2019 after two bodies were found
The victims had been subjected to ‘very significant violence’ and suffered injuries consistent with kicking or stamping, Mr Penny said.
They had both suffered numerous rib fractures while Ms Szucs had sustained ‘dreadful’ head injuries and Ms Mustafa’s sternum and larynx had been fractured.
Mr Harding said Younis had shown no remorse as he subjected his victims’ families to a trial.
‘They have been incredibly brave throughout this entire ordeal. It is an ordeal in court listening to his lies. It is hard to listen if you are a family,’ he added.