A “violent, jealous, controlling” husband who stabbed his wife to death as she pushed their baby in a pram after tracking her to a women’s refuge has been found guilty of murder.
Habibur Masum launched a “ferocious” knife attack in broad daylight on Kulsuma Akter before leaving her “bleeding to death in the gutter” and calmly walking away, leaving their seven-month-old son behind.
A court heard Masum, 26, followed Akter, 27, to a refuge in Bradford where she had been staying to escape him after he held a knife to her throat after an assault at their home in Greater Manchester.
After finding her through her phone location, Masum was seen on CCTV in the days leading up to the fatal attack “loitering, watching and waiting” in streets around the hostel, jurors heard.
He sent her messages threatening to kill her family members if she did not return to him, before trying to lure her out by sending her fake messages from a local GP practice pretending their son had an appointment and warning of “increasingly dire consequences” if she did not attend.
Bradford crown court heard Akter eventually felt safe enough to leave the refuge on 6 April last year after Masum updated his Facebook page falsely claiming to be in Spain.
As she was walking in the city centre with a friend, pushing her baby in a pram, Masum confronted her, the trial heard.
He was seen on CCTV trying to steer Akter and the pram away before pulling a knife from his jacket and launching the “brutal attack” when he realised she was not coming with him, the prosecutor, Stephen Wood KC, told jurors.
CCTV footage of the attack, played during the trial, captured Akter’s screams as Masum stabbed her at least 25 times, put her on the ground and kicked her “as a final insult” before lifting her head and deliberately cutting her throat.
Wood said the “smiling killer” then calmly walked through Bradford city centre and was seen on CCTV grinning as he got on a bus, “believing at that point he was getting away”.
Jurors heard Masum travelled almost 200 miles south to Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and was arrested in the early hours of 9 April in a car park near Stoke Mandeville hospital, where he had gone to be treated for “lockjaw”.
During the trial, Masum refused to watch footage of the attack but jurors heard that during his first police interview he requested to see it, with Wood saying he wanted to see what officers “had on him”.
When he gave evidence, Masum said he did not remember killing his wife and had taken a knife with him intending to stab himself in front of her if she did not “listen to him”.
He broke down in tears as he claimed to have “lost control” when Akter told him there would be no shortage of people willing to replace him as a father to their son.
But Wood said his tears “were as fake as his claims of self-harm” and that “the only person Habibur Masum feels sorry for is himself”.
He said antagonising Masum was “the very last thing Kulsuma would do” as she knew what he was capable of.
Wood said the relationship between Masum and Akter was “an abusive relationship characterised by his jealousy, possessiveness and controlling behaviour”.
Jurors heard the couple met and married in Bangladesh, and came to the UK in 2022 after he obtained a student visa and enrolled on a master’s course to study marketing.
Masum had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denied murder. On Friday he was found guilty of the more serious charge, as well as one charge of assault, one count of making threats to kill and one charge of stalking. He pleaded guilty to possession of a knife in public.