Man 'killed wife then dressed in her clothes to try and convince family she was still alive'

Ahmed Al-Khatib is accused of killing Rania Alayed, 25, because he felt she had become "too westernised"

A "violent and controlling" husband killed his wife and then wore her clothes in bid to convince her family she was still alive, a court has heard.

Ahmed Al-Khatib, 35, is accused of murdering Rania Alayed, 25, at his brother's flat because he believed she had become "too westernised".

The mum-of-three had dropped her children off at the flat in Gorton, Manchester, and has not been seen since.

A jury at Manchester Crown Court was told Al-Khatib killed her and then walked out of the flat wearing some of her traditional clothing and carrying a suitcase containing her corpse.

It is alleged his brother Muhaned Al-Khatib, 38, and another sibling then drove the body from the Manchester area to North Yorkshire where she was buried.

Ms Alayed, formerly from the Middlesbrough area,  was last seen on June 7 last year and ten months on her body has never been found.

The prosecution say her marriage was "marred by violence" from Ahmed Al-Khatib, and that Ms Alayed had left him after years of serious domestic abuse.

She feared for her life and had sought help from the Citizens Advice Bureau, the police and eventually a solicitor which had angered her husband's family.

Prosecutor Tony Cross QC said: "The family of the defendants were insulted that she had gone to the law. They wanted her and her children back within the family fold.

"They believed that she was establishing an independent life, perhaps with another man. Therefore it was decided that she should either be forced to comply or be killed."

Mr Cross said Ms Alayed told one friend she feared her husband would kill her, that he was "prone to anger" and "contemptuous of females".

"She began to become a little too westernised and had friends, male and female," Mr Cross went on. "This was all too much for the first two defendants."

Muhaned Al-Khatib arranged for her to drop her children off at his flat in Salford, on the pretence they would spend the weekend with their father, the court heard.

The prosecutor went on: "There the first defendant lay in wait for her. Within the hour of her arrival she was dead and a deception began to hide the murder."

Ahmed Al-Khatib, from Knutsford Road, Gorton, later admitted causing his wife's death as he told psychiatrists that he pushed her to the ground and she banged her head.

 

Mr Cross said: "He denies any intention to kill her. He says that at the time he did that he was suffering from an abnormality of the mind, that he was possessed of a spirit which caused him to do what he did."

Muhaned Al-Khatib said he was not present at the time that any violence was used against Ms Alayed and did not bear any responsibility for her murder, the prosecutor added.

Both men deny murder but pleaded guilty to intending to pervert the course of justice by transporting and concealing the body of Ms Alayed.

A third brother, Hussain Al-Khatib, 34, from Gorton, denies the latter charge.

The trial continues.

-Mirror