Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Man Convicted in Pakistan of Murdering DR Imran Farooq in Edgware in 2010
Man Convicted in Pakistan of Murdering DR Imran Farooq in Edgware in 2010
Man convicted in
Pakistan of murdering
Dr Imran Farooq in
Edgware in 2010
A man has been convicted in Pakistan for the murder of Dr Imran Farooq in
Edgware, north London in September 2010.
The conviction comes almost 10 years after the murder of Dr Farooq and is
the culmination of painstaking work by detectives from the Met’s Counter
Terrorism Command, who sifted through thousands of hours of CCTV, spoke
with over 4,000 witnesses and collected more than 4,500 exhibits as part of
the investigation, which led them to identify the two men who committed
the murder outside Dr Farooq’s home in Green Lane, Edgware.
“This outcome would not have been possible were it not for the incredible
dedication, skill and determination of the investigation team, who for
almost ten years, have never given up in their pursuit of his killers.
“I would also like to pay tribute to Dr Imran Farooq’s widow and his family,
who have shown tremendous dignity, strength and patience as we have
gone about our investigation.”
Initially, there was very little evidence for detectives to use that would help
identify the attackers. A small number of witnesses had seen the attack, and
provided descriptions of the two men, but there was no CCTV near the
house or close by that showed the suspects and no immediate forensic
evidence available to help identify the attackers.
Several public appeals, including the release of an e-fit image of one of the
attackers, were made in the days, weeks and months following the attack,
but these did not lead to any meaningful breakthroughs in the
investigation.
The first significant breakthrough came when officers spotted a man who
seemed to be watching Dr Farooq on the morning of 16 September 2010 as
he was using a cashpoint outside Barclays bank in Station Road, Edgware.
The same man, who is wearing a distinctive cap, is then seen to use the
cashpoint shortly after. When officers reviewed other CCTV footage from the
Station Road area just prior to the murder, they saw a man wearing the
same distinctive cap running in the direction of Dr Farooq’s home address.
Further CCTV from the area was examined, and the same individual was
also seen on footage from the day before the murder, where he was with
another man – both using the same cashpoint outside Barclay’s bank.
Enquiries with the bank linked the cash withdrawals by the man wearing
the cap to an account in the name of Mohsin Ali Syed. The account was
registered to an address in Stanmore, and when officers visited the address,
the landlord confirmed that he had reported Syed missing on 29 September
2010. The landlord revealed that around two weeks before the date of the
murder, he had given Syed permission for a friend called ‘Kamran’ to stay at
the flat.
The landlord also told officers that Syed was studying at a private college in
east London and had been since around February 2010. When detectives
contacted the college they discovered that a man called Muhammad
Kamran had also enrolled at the college on 8 September 2010 – just over a
week before the murder took place. His college enrolment papers showed
Kamran had listed Syed’s Stanmore address as being his UK residence.
Detectives analysed flight passenger lists for flights departing the UK in the
days after the murder, and found that Syed and Kamran had travelled on a
flight from London Heathrow to Colombo, Sri Lanka late on 16 September
2010. Further enquiries by officers showed that both Syed and Kamran then
travelled on a flight from Sri Lanka to Karachi, Pakistan on 19 September
2010.
This led to the investigation team publicly announcing in May 2014 that
both Syed and Kamran were wanted in connection with the murder.
However, officers believed that the pair were likely to still be in Pakistan.
Enquiries into the pair’s background revealed that both Syed and Kamran
were connected to the MQM Party, and confirmed the investigation team’s
suspicion that the murder had likely been politically-motivated, given Dr
Farooq had been suspended from the party at the time of his death.
The trial continued throughout late 2019, and early 2020 and officers from
the investigation team attended court in Pakistan to give evidence and
provide details of the Met’s investigation into the murder. A number of UK-
based witnesses also gave evidence during the trial in Pakistan via video-
link at Hendon Magistrates’ Court.