Husband is found guilty of killing his wife after new trial

A MAN was yesterday found guilty of killing his doctor wife by strangling her in front of her children after a retrial.

Nabeel Khan was originally convicted of murdering Iffat Kamal, 39, at their home following a trial in Perth in 2009.

But his conviction was quashed after prosecutors argued that the jury had been misdirected by the high court judge.

Areeb Hussain was called as a key witness along with the doctor's mother Nighat Kamal, 66, at the seven-day trial at the High Court in Aberdeen.

Yesterday Khan, 47, was found guilty of culpable homicide, a charge he admitted from the start. The jury of eight men and six women deliberating for an hour-and-a-half. But the doctor's mother broke down as she left court yesterday, saying her daughter had been "murdered twice" in light of the double trial.

Carried from the court, Mrs Kamal's mother said: "She was murdered. This precious girl of mine. She was so compassionate. She died in violence."

Khan, a former bank advisor, admitted "full responsibility" for his wife's death, but maintained he had not murdered her.

Judge Lord Hardie ordered Khan to serve at least 15 years before he could apply for parole following the first trial.

But at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh in August last year, judges heard claims that Lord Hardie had misdirected the jury while dealing with the differences between murder and culpable homicide.

Yesterday Khan was found guilty of killing Mrs Kamal by compressing her neck until she fell unconscious on 10 December, 2008. She died ten days later at Ninewells Hospital, where she worked as a consultant pathologist.

Khan will be sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow on 24 May.