TikTok influencer jailed with mum for double murder has sentence reduced

A TikTok influencer who was previously jailed for more than 30 years for a double murder has had her sentence reduced at the Court of Appeal.

Mahek Bukhari was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 31 years in September 2023 for murdering two men after one threatened to expose his affair with her mother by releasing a sex tape.

Her parent, Ansreen Bukahri, was also given a life sentence of at least 26 years for her involvement in the killing of Saqib Hussain, 21, and Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin, also 21, in February 2022.

Mahek’s minimum term was reduced at a hearing today to 26 years and 285 days after her lawyers believed her original minimum term was ‘wholly disproportionate’.

The influencer challenged her sentence at the Court of Appeal earlier this month.

In today’s ruling, Lord Justice Warby, Mr Justice Lavender and Judge Sylvia de Bertodano reduced her minimum term after finding her sentence to be ‘manifestly excessive’.

‘The judge did not make enough allowance for the fact that this appellant was an immature 22-year-old at the time of these offences,’ Lord Justice Warby said.

A trial at Leicester Crown Court heard the murders were a result of Ansreen’s unsuccessful attempts to break off her affair with Mr Hussain.

The pair ‘lured’ Mr Hussain to a meeting where they hoped to buy his silence for the £3,000 he claimed to have spent on taking her out during their three-year affair.

However, the Bukharis and six other people in two vehicles, an Audi TT and a Seat Leon, went to ‘ambush’ him and force him to hand over the phone containing the explicit films and photos.

Mr Hussain and Mr Ijzazuddin, from Banbury in Oxfordshire, were told to meet in a Tesco car park in Hamilton, Leicester, under the pretence of returning the money.

Mr Ijazuddin had said he would take Mr Hussain to Leicester as a ‘favour’.

Mahek, her mother and others chased Mr Ijazuddin’s Skoda Fabia along the A46 and deliberately rammed it off the road, the trial heard.

Jurors were played the frantic 999 call Mr Hussain made moments before his death when he told police they were being ‘rammed’ by balaclava-clad assailants and said: ‘Please, I’m begging you, I’m going to die.’

Jurors heard his last words, ‘Oh my God’, before there was a scream and the call cut off at the sound of an impact.

Analysis by forensic collision investigators showed the Audi had reached speeds of up to 100mph, causing the Skoda to ‘split in two’.

Christopher Millington KC, for Mahek, said at a hearing on October 17 that her age and ‘lack of maturity’ should have resulted in a shorter sentence.

He said Mr Hussain’s threats to release the sexually explicit material of Ansreen should have been taken into account.

‘None of this, we submit, was reflected in the fixing of the minimum term as it should have been,’ he said.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) opposed the appeal.

Collingwood Thompson KC, for the CPS, acknowledged Mr Hussain’s blackmail ‘undoubtedly existed’ but said the sentence was ‘tough’ but not ‘manifestly excessive’.

But Lord Justice Welby said Mahek’s response to the blackmail was ‘disproportionate’, adding it was ‘hard to see any real link between any of Saqib’s behaviour and the events on the A46 that led to his death’.

He did acknowledge Mahek’s youth and immaturity were ‘given far too little weight’ and should have ‘exerted a substantial downward pressure’ on her minimum term.

Fellow defendants Rekhan Karwan, 29, and Raees Jamal, 23, were jailed for life with a minimum of 26 years and 31 years respectively for two counts of murder, while a further three were found guilty of two counts of manslaughter.

Natasha Akhtar, 23, was jailed for 11 years and eight months, and Ameer Jamal, 28, and Sanaf Gulamustafa, 23, were jailed for 14 years and eight months and 14 years and nine months.

All had challenged their sentences alongside Mahek at the hearing in London.

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