Husband spotted ‘smiling’ on bus after stabbing wife to death found guilty of murder | UK News

A man seen “smiling” on CCTV after stabbing his wife to death as she pushed their seven-month-old baby in a pram has been found guilty of murder.

Habibur Masum, 26, launched the “ferocious” attack on 27-year-old Kulsuma Akter after tracing her to a refuge where she went to escape his “violence, jealousy and controlling behaviour”, a court heard.

She suffered more than 25 knife injuries after Masum found her through her phone location and confronted her in a street in Bradford, West Yorkshire, on 6 April last year.

After fleeing the scene, he got on a bus where CCTV footage showed him smiling, prosecutor Steve Wood KC told Bradford Crown Court.

He said the image “removed all possible doubt” about his intent and state of mind.

“There were no tears, there was no distress. Perhaps, members of the jury, the smile you can clearly see form as he gets on that bus is as a result of him thinking at that point he’s getting away. The smiling killer,” he told the court.

After a four-day manhunt, Masum was arrested 150 miles away in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where he lived when the couple first came to the UK, having met and married in Bangladesh.

He had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and possession of a knife but denied murder, claiming he had intended to kill himself in front of his wife but “totally lost control”.

On Friday, Masum was convicted of murder, alongside one count of assault, making threats to kill, and one charge of stalking. He was cleared of another charge of assault.

He had no visible reaction as the verdicts were read out. Judge Mr Justice Cotter told him he will be sentenced on 22 July, when the minimum term for his life sentence will be decided.

Wife had said husband ‘would kill her one day’

Mr Wood described Masum’s relationship with his wife as “abusive… characterised by his jealousy, possessiveness and controlling behaviour”.

After moving to Oldham, Greater Manchester, together in 2022, she left him – moving in first with her brother in July 2023, before being relocated to the Bradford refuge by social services in January 2024.

She left the relationship after he held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her in response to a “completely innocuous” message she received from a male colleague in November 2023, the court was told.

Ms Akter told a social worker afterwards that she “believed that one day her husband would kill her”.

Masum denied the November incident and claimed his wife had fabricated a domestic violence case against him as a way to stay in the UK – as he wanted to return to Bangladesh.

He was subject to court bail conditions ordering him to keep away from her at the time of the murder.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigated both West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester Police’s prior contact with Ms Akter, saying in a statement on Friday that the probe concluded in December – but will not be made public so as not to prejudice the victim’s inquest.

3pm attack in front of onlookers

During the trial, Mr Wood told the jury Masum managed to track Ms Akter to Bradford and, days before the attack, tried to lure her into leaving the refuge by pretending to be from a GP’s surgery and offering her fake appointments.

She was walking with a friend and pushing her son in a pram at 3pm on the day she died when she was confronted by Masum, who she thought was in Spain.

CCTV showed Masum walking with Ms Akter until he stopped her, spun her and the pram around, and pulled a knife from his jacket.

“He tried to encourage Kulsuma back into the relationship,” West Yorkshire Police’s senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Stacey Atkinson said outside court after the verdict.

“When she dismissed that, he repeatedly stabbed her in front of horrified onlookers. He left her there to die. He walked away and utilised public transport to facilitate his escape out of Bradford.”

Ms Akter fell to the ground after she was stabbed, in the attack described by Mr Wood as a “cold-blooded, calculated, premeditated murder”.

“As a final act of sheer gratuitous violence, he kicks Kulsuma before moving away, but not before ensuring that he disposed of the knife,” he told the court.

Ms Akter’s stab injuries included ones to her body, neck, and face, he added.

Killer claimed ‘he totally lost control’

Giving evidence through a Bengali interpreter, Masum told the jury he tracked down his wife “still optimistic” he could save his marriage, but if that did not work he thought: “I will just kill myself in front of her.”

He broke down in tears as he claimed he “totally lost control”, later saying that the next thing he could remember was walking along the road with bloodstains on his hand.

But speaking after the court hearing, West Yorkshire Police’s DCI Atkinson said Masum had “realised the extent of evidence against him” so was trying to lean on “diminished responsibility”.

Describing the nature of the murder, she said it was “really unusual” to see “an event unfold on CCTV as it did”.

“Kulsuma suffered a brutal attack in broad daylight whilst her baby son was in his pram,” she said in a statement.

“Kulsuma’s family have been left absolutely devastated by her death, I hope today’s conviction will bring them a sense of justice in knowing that the man responsible for her death has been found guilty.”