A promising schoolboy was murdered by mistake when he answered the door to two contract killers who had gone to the wrong house.
Aamir Siddiqi, 17, was stabbed by the drug-addled pair who had mixed up the address of their planned £2,000 hit.
Instead of killing their target, they murdered the A-level student in a frenzied attack in front of his parents.
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Ben Hope, 39, and Jason Richards, 38,
had each been paid £1,000 in ‘blood money’ to kill a middle-aged man who
owed money to a businessman.
But the balaclava-wearing assassins, both high on heroin, went to the Siddiqi family home by mistake.
Aamir’s parents, Iqbal and Parveen, fought to save their son but were also stabbed by his ‘howling’ killers.
Yesterday, almost three years after the student’s life was cut short, his grieving family paid tribute to a ‘beautiful person’ who had dreamed of becoming a lawyer.
Aamir had been waiting for his Koran teacher when he heard the doorbell ring and ran downstairs to answer it.
As soon as he opened the door, he was set upon by Hope and Richards who howled as they plunged knives into their victim’s neck and chest.
The pair had been hired to attack a middle-aged man who lived with his family in a neighbouring street in Roath Park, Cardiff.
Prosecutor Patrick Harrington, QC,
told the court: ‘On a sunny Sunday afternoon, this young man was stabbed
to death in the hallway of his home.
‘Neither he nor his parents had any expectation that their lives would be shattered by that attack that day.
‘Hope and Richards had been recruited to carry out an attack over a debt but tragically for Aamir and his family, the killers went to the wrong house.
They had been contracted to carry out their lethal attack at a different address.
‘But by what can only be described as staggering incompetence, they went to wholly the wrong address and killed an innocent young man.’
The man who paid Hope and Richards cannot be named for legal reasons.
The intended target was father-of-four Mohammed Tanhai, who had unwittingly become indebted to the killers’ employer.
The trial heard Hope used his share of the payment to buy a laptop and a pair of trainers. He and his accomplice both denied murder, and blamed each other for the fatal stabbing in April 2010.
But after a three-month trial they were found guilty of murdering Aamir and of attempting to murder his parents.
Members of the jury had wept openly as they listened to the harrowing 999 call made by Aamir’s devastated mother. The retired education official was heard screaming down the phone as she told the operator: ‘Two men came into my house with knives and masks.
They stabbed my son, stabbed my husband and they stabbed me
as well.’ Hope and Richards will be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court
next Friday but were told the only sentence for murder is life
imprisonment.
After the conviction, which was met with audible relief from Aamir’s family, his father, Iqbal, 70, said: ‘With his departure, life has become very empty and somewhat meaningless. Aamir was everything in my life.’
He added: ‘He had a photographic memory and could read something and remember it all. He would see something and never forget. That is why he decided to be a lawyer when he grew up.’ Mr Siddiqi’s wife Parveen, 57, added: ‘I still feel his presence around me. I miss his big hugs.
‘Life changed when the doorbell rang and he opened the door. It took seconds. We didn’t even get the chance to wonder what had happened.’
Referring to his son’s murderers, Mr Siddiqi said: ‘I think that they have done something very sinister and they will be sentenced very heavily, and that is what they deserve. We are relieved that justice has been done.’
Detective Superintendent Paul Hurley said: ‘Aamir Siddiqi was a kind and talented young man who had a bright future ahead of him.
‘Despite being left totally devastated at losing their beloved son and brother in such tragic circumstances, Aamir’s loving family have shown tireless strength and remarkable dignity.’
The trial of Ben Hope and Jason Richards lifted the lid on a murky criminal underworld in Cardiff's leafy suburbs.
Hard drugs, violence and the menacing immorality of contract killing are a million miles from the ordinary lives of most people.
The tragic train of events which led to the bloody murder of Aamir Siddiqi stemmed from nothing more than an innocent house sale.
Family man Mohammed Tanhai was the intended target of the doorstep murder and would probably be dead today had the killers got the right address.
Even before the murder, Mr Tanhai had lived in fear for his life after a simple plan to sell his family home (above) turned into a nightmare.
The shady businessman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, originally offered him cash to take his property off the market.
The move was supposed to have been a temporary measure to allow the businessman time to raise a mortgage for the purchase.
But over the next 18 months he handed over £50,000 in cash in part-payment for the property, refusing a receipt on each occasion.
When Mr Tanhai pushed for a proper settlement of the deal the businessman pulled out.
It is now thought the payments were made as an elaborate way of using Mr Tanhai in what was an unsuccessful attempt to launder drug money.
His inability to pay it back marked the start of a period of violence and intimidation which eventually forced the family to flee.
At one point they lived at a secret safe house where they had been urged to move by police.
At the time of the murder, the family were living back at their Cardiff address unaware of the secret plan of violence already in motion.
In a bitter twist the eventual victim was an innocent teenager whose life was cut tragically short when he opened his front door on that fateful day.
Action films which feature hitmen normally depict cold-blooded killers as ruthlessly efficient murdering machines.
Whether male or female, they generally have a series of false identities and possess an uncanny ability to blend in.
Once a murder has been committed, the perpetrator disappears without trace, leaving baffled detectives not the slightest clue.
Heroin addict Ben Hope, convicted of murder at Swansea Crown Court today (pictured above) was clueless rather than clever and went about the killing with 'staggering incompetence', according to the prosecution.
Hope was already a known criminal and drug addict in Cardiff when the murder of Aamir Siddiqi (right) was carried out.
High on drugs, Hope went to a well-kept end-of-row family home in Ninian Road, Roath, and murdered one of its inhabitants by mistake.
The slender link it shared with the real target's home was a slight resemblance to the property of the person he was paid to kill.
The intended target of the killing lived in Shirley Road, 60 yards away in a similar looking red-brick property.
Far from him keeping a low profile, the attack took place in daylight with Hope clad in a balaclava, wielding a knife and making a high-pitched cry.
He made off in a stolen Volvo car he had often used, soon abandoned, and was covered in his fingerprints and contained his victim's blood.
Rewarded for the killing with £1,000 cash, before his mistake was known, Hope went on a ridiculously ostentatious spending spree.
He began by buying new training shoes at a Cardiff store with money from an cash-crammed envelope, as the salesman later remembered.
He then took a taxi to an out-of-town computer store, ensuring he was remembered by asking the driver to wait for his return.
Once inside the store, he paid around £700 for a laptop and told a bemused salesman taking down his details that his name was Mr Smith.
Within days he had pawned the new laptop for a fraction of its true value to pay for drugs to feed his addiction.
The whole saga only went to ensure police were quickly able to get a clear plan of his movements in the hours after the killing.
Hope was hardly an upstanding member of society in the years before the murder as a summary of his previous convictions makes clear.
He was jailed for six years in 1997 for robbery and kidnapping.
An Asian couple walking along a Cardiff street were the innocent victims of Hope's indiscriminate anger.
After shouting racist abuse from his car, he attacked them, forced both into the vehicle and drove off at speed, later crashing. Hope and an accomplice then made off on foot.
While serving his six-year sentence at Cardiff Prison, Hope's cell-mate was murder co-accused Jason Richards.
During jail time, Hope hardly kept a low profile, breaking the nose of a prison guard in a violent outburst four years into the sentence.
Violence flared again in December 2007 when he was caught shoplifting in Cardiff and sprayed a noxious liquid in a store detective's face as he tried to escape.
He was later convicted of possessing an offensive weapon and sentenced to a community order and drug rehabilitation programme.
Aamir Siddiqi, 17, was stabbed by the drug-addled pair who had mixed up the address of their planned £2,000 hit.
Instead of killing their target, they murdered the A-level student in a frenzied attack in front of his parents.
Scroll down for video
Blundering: Aamir's house in Ninian Road,
Cardiff (left), where he was murdered on the doorstep in error and the
house in nearby Shirley Road (right) where the real target lived
Crime: Student Aamir Siddiqui, 17, was murdered
in the hallway of his home (pictured) by two bungling hitmen who had
gone to the wrong house
Warning: Murderers Jason Richards (left) and Ben
Hope (right) in the dock at Swansea Crown Court today, where they were
convicted and warned they face a life sentence
But the balaclava-wearing assassins, both high on heroin, went to the Siddiqi family home by mistake.
Yesterday, almost three years after the student’s life was cut short, his grieving family paid tribute to a ‘beautiful person’ who had dreamed of becoming a lawyer.
Tragedy: Police forensics officers at the home
of talented student Aamir Siddiqi, who was stabbed after he had run down
the stairs to answer the door expecting to see his imam who was due to
give him a Koran lesson
Tragedy: Police forensics officers at the home
of talented student Aamir Siddiqi in Ninian Road, who was stabbed after
he had run down the stairs to answer the door expecting to see his imam
who was due to give him a Koran lesson
Next street: The criminals had been paid £1,000 to kill their target in Shirley Road in Roath, Cardiff but got it wrong
As soon as he opened the door, he was set upon by Hope and Richards who howled as they plunged knives into their victim’s neck and chest.
The pair had been hired to attack a middle-aged man who lived with his family in a neighbouring street in Roath Park, Cardiff.
Talented: The family and friends of Aamir
Saddiqi had great hopes for the academic A-Level student, before his
life was so cruelly ended
‘Neither he nor his parents had any expectation that their lives would be shattered by that attack that day.
‘Hope and Richards had been recruited to carry out an attack over a debt but tragically for Aamir and his family, the killers went to the wrong house.
They had been contracted to carry out their lethal attack at a different address.
‘But by what can only be described as staggering incompetence, they went to wholly the wrong address and killed an innocent young man.’
The man who paid Hope and Richards cannot be named for legal reasons.
The intended target was father-of-four Mohammed Tanhai, who had unwittingly become indebted to the killers’ employer.
The trial heard Hope used his share of the payment to buy a laptop and a pair of trainers. He and his accomplice both denied murder, and blamed each other for the fatal stabbing in April 2010.
But after a three-month trial they were found guilty of murdering Aamir and of attempting to murder his parents.
Members of the jury had wept openly as they listened to the harrowing 999 call made by Aamir’s devastated mother. The retired education official was heard screaming down the phone as she told the operator: ‘Two men came into my house with knives and masks.
Scrum: Following the verdict Aamir's sister
Umbareen Siddiqi (centre) is surrounded by the rest of her family as she
spoke on the steps of Swansea Crown Court
Emotional: Umbareen was moved as she paid tribute to her brother killed on a bungled mafia-style hit on the wrong person
After the conviction, which was met with audible relief from Aamir’s family, his father, Iqbal, 70, said: ‘With his departure, life has become very empty and somewhat meaningless. Aamir was everything in my life.’
He added: ‘He had a photographic memory and could read something and remember it all. He would see something and never forget. That is why he decided to be a lawyer when he grew up.’ Mr Siddiqi’s wife Parveen, 57, added: ‘I still feel his presence around me. I miss his big hugs.
‘Life changed when the doorbell rang and he opened the door. It took seconds. We didn’t even get the chance to wonder what had happened.’
Referring to his son’s murderers, Mr Siddiqi said: ‘I think that they have done something very sinister and they will be sentenced very heavily, and that is what they deserve. We are relieved that justice has been done.’
Detective Superintendent Paul Hurley said: ‘Aamir Siddiqi was a kind and talented young man who had a bright future ahead of him.
‘Despite being left totally devastated at losing their beloved son and brother in such tragic circumstances, Aamir’s loving family have shown tireless strength and remarkable dignity.’
Family: Miriam (left), Umbareen (centre) and
Nishat Siddiqi (Right) arrive at Swansea Crown Court for the trial of
Ben Hope and Jason Richards, who murdered Aamir Siddiqi
Bereft: Iqbal Siddiqi (L) the father of tragic Aamir was also attacked, as was his wife
Moving: People offer their Friday prayers on the
road outside Bilal Mosque in Cardiff while the hearse with Aamir
Siddiqi's coffin is waiting behind them for his funeral
Outpouring: Floral tributes left outside the home of Aamir Siddiqi in Ninian Road, Cardiff where he was murdered
LEAFY SUBURBS BACKDROP TO VIOLENT DEATH OF TEENAGER
The house in Shirley Road where the real target lived
Hard drugs, violence and the menacing immorality of contract killing are a million miles from the ordinary lives of most people.
The tragic train of events which led to the bloody murder of Aamir Siddiqi stemmed from nothing more than an innocent house sale.
Family man Mohammed Tanhai was the intended target of the doorstep murder and would probably be dead today had the killers got the right address.
Even before the murder, Mr Tanhai had lived in fear for his life after a simple plan to sell his family home (above) turned into a nightmare.
The shady businessman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, originally offered him cash to take his property off the market.
The move was supposed to have been a temporary measure to allow the businessman time to raise a mortgage for the purchase.
But over the next 18 months he handed over £50,000 in cash in part-payment for the property, refusing a receipt on each occasion.
When Mr Tanhai pushed for a proper settlement of the deal the businessman pulled out.
It is now thought the payments were made as an elaborate way of using Mr Tanhai in what was an unsuccessful attempt to launder drug money.
His inability to pay it back marked the start of a period of violence and intimidation which eventually forced the family to flee.
At one point they lived at a secret safe house where they had been urged to move by police.
At the time of the murder, the family were living back at their Cardiff address unaware of the secret plan of violence already in motion.
In a bitter twist the eventual victim was an innocent teenager whose life was cut tragically short when he opened his front door on that fateful day.
VIDEO Within seconds our life changed forever. Aamir's sister reacts...
MURDER OF TALENTED AAMIR SIDDIQI WAS BY TWO 'CLUELESS' CRIMINALS
Whether male or female, they generally have a series of false identities and possess an uncanny ability to blend in.
Once a murder has been committed, the perpetrator disappears without trace, leaving baffled detectives not the slightest clue.
Heroin addict Ben Hope, convicted of murder at Swansea Crown Court today (pictured above) was clueless rather than clever and went about the killing with 'staggering incompetence', according to the prosecution.
High on drugs, Hope went to a well-kept end-of-row family home in Ninian Road, Roath, and murdered one of its inhabitants by mistake.
The slender link it shared with the real target's home was a slight resemblance to the property of the person he was paid to kill.
The intended target of the killing lived in Shirley Road, 60 yards away in a similar looking red-brick property.
Far from him keeping a low profile, the attack took place in daylight with Hope clad in a balaclava, wielding a knife and making a high-pitched cry.
He made off in a stolen Volvo car he had often used, soon abandoned, and was covered in his fingerprints and contained his victim's blood.
Rewarded for the killing with £1,000 cash, before his mistake was known, Hope went on a ridiculously ostentatious spending spree.
He began by buying new training shoes at a Cardiff store with money from an cash-crammed envelope, as the salesman later remembered.
He then took a taxi to an out-of-town computer store, ensuring he was remembered by asking the driver to wait for his return.
Once inside the store, he paid around £700 for a laptop and told a bemused salesman taking down his details that his name was Mr Smith.
Within days he had pawned the new laptop for a fraction of its true value to pay for drugs to feed his addiction.
The whole saga only went to ensure police were quickly able to get a clear plan of his movements in the hours after the killing.
Hope was hardly an upstanding member of society in the years before the murder as a summary of his previous convictions makes clear.
He was jailed for six years in 1997 for robbery and kidnapping.
An Asian couple walking along a Cardiff street were the innocent victims of Hope's indiscriminate anger.
After shouting racist abuse from his car, he attacked them, forced both into the vehicle and drove off at speed, later crashing. Hope and an accomplice then made off on foot.
While serving his six-year sentence at Cardiff Prison, Hope's cell-mate was murder co-accused Jason Richards.
During jail time, Hope hardly kept a low profile, breaking the nose of a prison guard in a violent outburst four years into the sentence.
Violence flared again in December 2007 when he was caught shoplifting in Cardiff and sprayed a noxious liquid in a store detective's face as he tried to escape.
He was later convicted of possessing an offensive weapon and sentenced to a community order and drug rehabilitation programme.
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