Two found guilty of murder in Chatham arson attack

01/06/2012

Two people have been found guilty of the murder of three members of the same family in an arson attack in Chatham.

Petrol was sprayed through the letterbox of a terraced house on Chatham Hill in the early hours of 10 September 2011 and the resulting fire killed 20 year old Melissa Muhammadi (nee Crook), her father Mark and Melissa's young son Noah, who was aged just over 15 months when he died.

Danai Muhammadi and Farhad Mahmud were both convicted of the three murders after a trial at Maidstone Crown Court lasting six weeks. They were also convicted of the attempted murder of the two survivors of the fire, Amanda Crook and her son Bohdan.

Emma Smith, Muhammadi's partner at the time of the arson attack, was convicted of three counts of manslaughter.

They will be sentenced on a date yet to be fixed in July.

Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor Jaswant Narwal said: "This attack was clearly planned so that the family would not be able to escape the effects of the fire, with the main route out of the house cut off. Those involved knew exactly what they were doing and what the consequences of their actions were likely to be. The time at which this was carried out was when the family would have been asleep upstairs and defenceless.

"This has been a particularly harrowing case involving the death of a young child, his mother and grandfather. Our thoughts are with the survivors, Amanda and Bohdan Crook, both of whom gave evidence during the trial. No-one can imagine what they have gone through over the past few months ever since the events of that terrible night. Through close working with Kent Police, CPS South East has been able to bring those responsible for this crime to justice, and I can only hope that is of some small comfort to Amanda and Bohdan."