Two males have been sentenced to 35 years every in jail for murdering a 71-year-old businesswoman in a £4.6m rip-off to plunder her life financial savings.
Mohamed El Abboud, 28, and Kusai Al-Jundi, 25, focused trusting mother-of-two Louise Kam, who had beforehand owned a catering enterprise along with her ex-husband earlier than going into rental properties.
Al-Jundi, a chef from north-west London, spent months trying to trick Ms Kam, from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, into giving him management of two properties she owned in Willesden and East Barnet by providing her thousands and thousands of kilos.
He additionally aimed to achieve management of her funds by convincing her to signal a Lasting Power of Attorney doc.
But the rip-off got here to a head when Ms Kam made it clear she wouldn’t signal over the properties.
The pair then lured her to her three-bedroom property in Barnet on 26 July final 12 months. There she was strangled with a hairdryer wire throughout a “violent struggle”.
Her physique was then wrapped up in a quilt, dumped in a wheelie bin and coated with backyard garbage.
The following day the pair moved the bin to a street in Harrow the place they lined it up with different bins displaying the identical quantity on the entrance in what the court docket heard was a plot to “cover up” the pair’s “atrocity”.
El Abboud and Al-Jundi have been convicted on the Old Bailey on 19 January after officers untangled their lies and located proof linking them to her homicide.
On Wednesday the pair have been each sentenced to life in jail, with a minimal time period of 35 years, by Judge Mark Lucraft KC, who stated the homicide of Ms Kam was motivated “by greed”.
Phone used to faux sufferer was nonetheless alive
Ms Kam, from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, was final seen by a member of the family close to the Spires Shopping Centre in Barnet on 26 July 2021.
She was reported lacking to police the next day and an investigation was launched to seek out her.
Her black BMW was recovered by police on 28 July in Edgware. Her physique was found on 1 August 2021 in a wheelie bin on Wood End Road, Harrow.
Investigators stated the next day, Al-Jundi despatched Ms Kam’s household and buddies messages pretending she was alive and that she had gone on vacation.
On the identical day El-Abboud offered Ms Kam’s BMW and acquired new garments with the proceeds.
He additionally posted a TikTok video dancing and gyrating to music within the driveway of her Barnet house.
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The decide had instructed how Al-Jundi had been described as a Walter Mitty character who falsely claimed to be a “person of means” with the backing of a multi-millionaire girlfriend when he set about tricking Ms Kam out of her property.
Having resolved to homicide her to pay money for her property, he promised El-Abboud a share “as a reward for killing her”, the decide stated.
Motivated by ‘greed’ to ‘revenue from her loss of life’
In sentencing each to life in jail, with a minimal time period of 35 years, Judge Mark Lucraft KC stated: “El-Abboud, it might be said that Al-Jundi played the lead role in the long-running defrauding of Louise, but I draw no distinction on the sentence to be passed on the two of you.
“The proof clearly reveals what you probably did and did willingly and that you just, together with Al-Jundi, did what you probably did out of greed.”
Catherine Gould, prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “This horrific crime is a story of greed taken to extremes. Al-Jundi and El-Abboud selfishly and brutally ended Louise Kam’s life for their very own ends.
“These defendants hatched a plan to kill Louise and profit from her death.”
In a sufferer affect assertion, Ms Kam’s son Gregory Kam stated the household had been left in a state of “disbelief” at what occurred to his mom.
He stated: “I deeply regret I was not able to do enough at the time to prevent my mother from falling for the lies of his wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“In addition to the preliminary stunning information of our mom’s disappearance and subsequent information of her homicide, I used to be not solely shocked however additional angered and sickened to find defendant one (Al-Jundi) enlisted the assistance of an confederate (El-Abboud) to trick, entrap, overpower and homicide a pension-age lady in her own residence below the guise of what was imagined to be a enterprise deal.”
Source: information.sky.com”