Man, 37, is convicted of murdering eight people including five children

Shahid Mohammed has been convicted at Leeds Crown Court of murdering eight people.

The murders took place in a house in Huddersfield in 2002 and include five children and three adults.

On July 10 a court heard how the 37-year-old burned down a house to murder eight members of the same family, including five children, in a family feud over his sister’s choice of boyfriend.

He was arrested after the house in Birkby went up in flames in 2002 and skipped bail before he could be brought to trial.

He then fled to Pakistan where he remained on the run until he was tracked down and extradited to Britain last year.

During a four-week trial at Leeds Crown Court, jurors heard that the blaze which caused the deaths of eight members of the Chisti family had followed a grudge that the defendant had been ‘pursuing vigorously’. 

Prosecutors said Mohammed, of no fixed address, reacted angrily when his sister, Shahida, became involved in a relationship with a man named Saud Pervez, of whom he did not approve.

One member of the Chisti family, Mohammed Ateeq-Ur-Rehman, known as Ateeq, had played an ‘active part’ in the maintaining of their relationship, and was probably the target of the attack on May 12 2002, the court heard.

Jurors were told that petrol bombs were thrown into the property, in Osborne Road, while petrol, believed to have been poured into the home through a nozzle, was ignited. 

Police pictured outside a property in Osborne Road in Huddersfield after a fire at a residence in 2002

Seven other members of his wider family, including five children, also perished in the blaze. 

They were Nafeesa Aziz, 35, and her daughters Tayyaba Bootall, three, Rabiah Bootall, 10, Ateeqa Nawaz, five, Aneesa Nawaz, two, and six-month-old Najeebah Nawaz. Miss Aziz’s mother, Zaib-un-Nisa, 54, died a week later in hospital. 

Mohammed will be sentenced on Wednesday.