Husband who put body in suitcase guilty of murder
By Jeremy Britton, BBC News
A man who strangled his wife for having an online affair and dumped her body in a river has been found guilty of murder.
Aminan Rahman, 46, from east London, attacked 24-year-old Suma Begum during a video call with her boyfriend last April, the Old Bailey heard.
The jury was told how Rahman put her into a suitcase after choking her, at which point she might still have been alive.
Rahman is due to be sentenced on 31 July.
Met police
The court heard that Rahman had “most likely” killed Ms Begum “there and then” at their flat in Tower Hamlets on the night of 29 April 2023, but had at the very least “incapacitated” her before placing her body in the suitcase and dumping it in the River Lea.
“If not already dead by then, she would have inevitably have drowned,” said prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward.
The suitcase was found 10 days later by a member of the public washed up on the riverbank downstream, still containing the body of Ms Begum.
CCTV footage released by the Metropolitan Police shows Rahman leaving the block of flats, holding a child in one arm and pulling a suitcase with the other. A second clip shows him next to the river with the suitcase before throwing it in.
Ms Begum had undergone an Islamic marriage over the telephone in 2019 when Rahman was in London and she was in Bangladesh, the court heard.
They had first lived in Somerset as husband and wife, where Rahman worked as a chef, before moving to east London in April 2023 where they stayed at a flat in the Docklands with their two children.
Ms Begum had started an “intimate” online relationship with a man her own age, Shanin Miah, who was living in the United Arab Emirates, and they “hoped in due course to be together”, said Ms Ledward.
Met police
‘Now you get ready’
On the night of Ms Begum’s murder, her neighbours heard children screaming and a loud bang against the wall.
That same night, the jury heard, Mr Miah received a WhatsApp video call from Rahman.
When he gave evidence during the one-month trial, Mr Miah sobbed as he told jurors how Rahman had threatened to kill Ms Begum, who was in the background of the call.
“She wanted to run away and then he grabbed her by the throat,” he said.
The court heard how Mr Miah received another call later that night in which Rahman told him: “Look, I have killed [her] and now you get ready.”
Mr Miah told the Old Bailey: “I saw that frothing was coming out of Suma’s mouth and he showed me on the video and he was swearing at me.”
Met police
‘Panicked’
The jury was shown CCTV of Rahman leaving the flat he shared with his wife shortly afterwards, carrying one of their children and pulling a large black suitcase.
Further footage was played of Rahman lifting the suitcase on to a metal barrier and pushing it into the River Lea.
“There is no dispute that Suma Begum was in that suitcase – placed there by the defendant,” said Ms Ledward.
Giving evidence in his defence, Rahman claimed that his wife had demanded money from him to help her boyfriend join her in England.
He alleged that she had threatened to hit their elder child unless he gave her £10,000.
Rahman also claimed he had then grabbed his wife around the neck with both hands in order to defend the child, when Ms Begum collapsed to the floor.
He then “panicked” and put her body into a suitcase, the court heard.
Rahman pleaded guilty before his trial to a charge of preventing the lawful and decent burial of her body.
‘Jealous rage’
Following the trial, the Metropolitan Police said the video call made by Rahman was “vital” to securing his conviction.
Det Ch Insp Kelly Allen, the lead investigator in the case, said: “Once Aminan Rahman was swiftly identified as the prime suspect, my team of homicide detectives analysed hundreds of hours of CCTV to trace his movements before and after the murder.
“We also managed to retrieve and download the full video call that Rahman made to Suma’s believed boyfriend. This further proved he killed her in a jealous rage.”
It had been a “challenging case” and the victim’s loved ones “have had to endure a trial in which they heard graphic details of how her body was hidden by her husband”, she added.
