Guilty of murder of wife found in suitcase in the Thames
Aminan Rahman, 46, strangled Suma Begum, 24, in front of her children and her boyfriend who was on a video call at the time
Last updated 3rd Jul 2024
A man is facing life in jail for throttling his young wife in front of her lover who'd she'd met on TikTok and throwing her body, hidden inside a suitcase, into a tributary of the River Thames.
Aminan Rahman, 46, has been found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey of murdering 24-year-old Suma Begum in a flat in east London on the night of April 29 last year.
The killing was witnessed by Ms Begum's two children as well as her online boyfriend via a video call from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he was living.
Rahman dumped his wife's body in a suitcase and threw it in a river
Rahman then stuffed Ms Begum into a suitcase while she was either dead or unconscious and was caught on CCTV dumping it in the River Lea, which runs through east London to the Thames.
The suitcase containing her decomposed body was found washed up on the river bank by a mudlarker 10 days later.
The court heard that Ms Begum's boyfriend, Shahin Miah, 24, had recorded an online video of the events leading to her death, which was later handed to police.
Mr Miah sobbed in court as he described a video call from Rahman in which he threatened to kill Ms Begum, who was on the bed in the background.
Rahman also threatened to kill Mr Miah, who was in the UAE at the time, the court heard.
Speaking through an interpreter, Mr Miah said: "She wanted to run away and he then grabbed her throat."
There were "three screaming sounds" before the video froze and nothing more could be seen after Rahman's initial lunge.
In a second video call from Rahman that night, the defendant told Mr Miah: "Look, I have killed (Ms Begum) and now you get ready."
Mr Miah told jurors: "I saw that frothing was coming out of Suma's mouth and he showed me on the video and he was swearing at me."
The court heard that Ms Begum had married the defendant in an arranged Islamic ceremony over the phone in 2019.
In 2020, she travelled from Bangladesh to live with the restaurant worker in Somerset and they had two children.
A year later, Ms Begum met Mr Miah via social media app TikTok, later moving on to WhatsApp.
"she was fairly openly in a relationship with another man, and she had expressed the desire to leave the defendant"
About seven or eight months into their "intimate, sexual" online relationship, Mr Miah found out she was married to Rahman, he said.
He said he told Rahman of the relationship, but the lovers stayed together and Ms Begum remained married.
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC had told jurors: "It is clear this young woman was no longer happy in her marriage, she was fairly openly in a relationship with another man, and she had expressed the desire to leave the defendant, something about which neither he nor her family were happy.
"But whether he was motivated by rage, shame, or pure jealousy, or a more complex mix of cultural expectations and emotions, may not matter.
"The prosecution case is that on the night of April 29-30, shortly before midnight, Shahin Miah witnessed the murder of Suma Begum by the defendant on a video call which he recorded.
"What he observed part of was the deliberate strangulation of Suma Begum days before her body was found."
Ms Ledward said that either Ms Begum was dead when she was put in the suitcase or had drowned in the water.
Either way, her death was no accident, having followed threats to harm her and then kill her and her lover, Ms Ledward said.
She added: "Within minutes, he deliberately disposed of her body in such a way that he hoped, no doubt, her body would simply be washed out to sea and never found, and that the fiction he began to create almost immediately, that she had simply abandoned him and the children after a minor argument, would be believed."
The court was told that the victim's two children, then aged four months and two years, were in the bedroom where the attack took place.
Giving evidence, Rahman accepted killing Ms Begum but claimed he never intended to harm her and had acted in the defence of the older child.
He claimed Ms Begum had threatened to kill the two-year-old and had thrown the child against a wall.
The prosecution rejected his claim.
Rahman had also been accused of attacking Ms Begum on an earlier occasion last February.
She made a video displaying scratches on her neck and told Mr Miah that the defendant had taken her "breathings" away, saying: "He almost killed me around my neck."
Rahman had denied murder and assaulting Ms Begum by beating but had pleaded guilty to preventing the lawful and decent burial of her body.
Following a month-long trial, a jury deliberated for four hours and 27 minutes to find Rahman guilty of all the charges against him.
Mr Justice Bennathan remanded Rahman into custody to be sentenced on July 31.