Murder plot court latest

Adnan Khalid is the cousin of Amjid Ali. The pair are standing trial over a conspiracy to kill Ali’s ex-wife, Neelam Amjid.

A jury at Leeds Crown Court heard Khalid, of Fairview Avenue in Carlinghow, sent thousands of pounds to family in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, which the prosecution say was payment for a planned shooting in the country.

Giving evidence this week, Khalid, 26, said the money was part of a land purchase which his family was involved in.

He said he didn’t know Ali had also been sending money to the family.

It is Khalid’s older brother, Mir Hamza Haled, who is alleged to have shot Miss Amjid in Laher on March 31 last year.

Prosecuting, Robert Smith said it was Khalid who gave Miss Amjid’s address, where she was living with her lover, to Ali’s younger brother Qadafi Ashraf, who is also alleged to be involved in the conspiracy.

Khalid said he gave Ashraf the address so he could visit Miss Amjid and talk to her about marital problems she was having with Ali.

Ali, of Aysgarth Road in Healey, has also given evidence this week.

He said he was too depressed and anxious to check if his former wife was all right when he heard she had been shot, and it didn’t occur to him to ask alleged shooter Haled why he had done it. He said he was worried he would be blamed for the shooting as he had arranged for Miss Amjid to meet Haled so he could give her some money.

He said: “In the end she was ringing me every day asking for money, she was desperate.

“I took pity on her and I sent her the money so she could get married and get on with her life.”

The court heard Ali, 42, didn’t have the money to send to Pakistan, so was going to borrow it from Haled and pay it back.

Ali said Haled had ‘hatred’ for Miss Amjid’s lover, Waqas Saeed. He said Haled had called him a son of a pig – an extremely disrespectful term in Muslim culture.

Haled and Ashraf are believed to be on the run.

Ali and Khalid both deny conspiracy to murder.

The trial continues.