A court in London heard that a Hounslow drug dealer was allegedly killed, burned and buried in a shallow grave in woods like a ‘Hollywood film plot’.
Mohammed Shah Subhani, 27, known as ‘Little Man’ disappeared in May 2019 and his body was found the following year.
According to reports, he was a cannabis dealer along with his brothers Mohammed Ali, known as ‘Big Man’, and Mohammed Subhan, known as ‘Baby Subs’.
The prosecution told the Old Bailey that Subhani was lured into a trap by another drug peddler Amraj Poonia known as ‘Bigs’. Following his murder, his body was allegedly wrapped in a carpet and transported through a succession of vehicles before being discarded.
“It sounds like something out of a Hollywood film, but it is the grim reality of this case,” prosecution Tom Little KC told the jury. He added that Subhani’s murder was linked to the ‘criminal underworld’.
“Cannabis dealing can bring gains but it carries risks, rivalries can occur, friends are no longer friends, suspicion, treachery, violence and, as this case reveals, even murder,” he is reported to have said.
The court heard that a drug dealer called Robbie asked Subhani to keep a very large quantity of cannabis. The victim kept five kilograms of the drug and gave one kilogram to Poonia for safe-keeping.
Later, two local drug users were paid £20 fabricate a plot that the drugs had been stolen by a man named Mohanad Riad.
The Subhanis suspected the robbery was fake and Poonia was involved. Both Poonia and Riad were assaulted by Subhani’s older brother.
The prosecution said that Subhani was murdered when he visited the Poonia family business, R & J Heating and Plumbing Trade in Hounslow.
The alleged murderers tried extensively hard to pervert the course of justice and to dispose of the dead body.
It is alleged that Subhani’s body was stored in different vehicles before being transported to Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where it was set ablaze and subsequently buried in a shallow grave in a storm drain.
During the trial, Poonia, 27, and his brother Raneel, 25, known as ‘Ace’, both from Hounslow, and Gurditta Singh, 26, of Slough, Berkshire, denied murder and perverting the course of justice.
Riad, 22, known as ‘Emz’, Mahamud Ismail, 26, known as ‘Major’, and Mohammed Shakeel, 29, Singh’s brother-in-law, also denied the charges.
The trial in the case continues.
