THE father of a student murdered six years ago was rushed to hospital yesterday, after the man convicted of ordering the “honour killing” won the right to an appeal hearing.
Chomir Ali, 49, of Asquith Road, Oxford, was jailed in 2005 after being found guilty at Oxford Crown Court of murdering his daughter’s boyfriend, Arash Ghorbani-Zarin.
The prosecution said the Bangladeshi waiter had ordered his two sons, Mujibar Rahman, 19, and Mamnoor Rahman, 16, to kill the Oxford Brookes student, an Iranian, to vindicate the family’s honour in 2004.
But Ali yesterday won the right to a full Court of Appeal hearing, at which his lawyers will argue the guilty verdict was “unsafe” and should be quashed.
Lord Justice Moses, sitting in London with Mr Justice Saunders and Judge Anthony Scott-Gall, said Ali had a “reasonable argument” and granted leave to appeal.
In yesterday’s Oxford Mail, Arash’s father Raheem Ghorbani-Zarin, 55, described the devastation wreaked on his family’s lives ever since his son was found dead in his car in Spencer Crescent, Rose Hill, having been strangled and stabbed 46 times.
Last night, Mr Ghorbani-Zarin was in the John Radcliffe Hospital, suffering high blood pressure and heart palpitations caused by the stress of the case.
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