4.00pm
Ahmad Riyaz Khan has been found guilty of murdering Gulshad Hussein in a death by fire trial at the Auckland High Court today.
Khan, 23, was accused of pouring a litre bottle of lighter fluid over Ms Hussein and setting her ablaze after she called a halt to their month-long relationship.
The incident happened at the Shell Service Station in Atkinson Avenue, Otahuhu, where Ms Hussein worked on 22 August last year.
Khan maintained that Ms Hussein hit him with the bottle during a struggle and the contents spilled on her and ignited when she came into contact with an electric heater behind the counter.
There were emotional scenes in the courtroom as the verdict was delivered, with Ms Hussein's family hugging police officers.
Khan gave the family a two handed one-finger salute.
In her summing up this morning, Justice Marion Frater told the jury they should keep a sense of realism, take a robust view and use their common sense in coming to a verdict.
Was it a terrible accident, as the defence maintained, or a deliberate act of setting a young woman alight, as alleged by the crown.
The jury had seen security footage of Khan and Ms Hussein struggling before Ms Hussein erupted in a fire-ball.
Justice Frater told the jury that they had to put aside natural emotional responses to the horrific video.
The judge told them that while a manslaughter verdict was possible, in the circumstances of this case it was a clear contest between a complete acquittal and murder.
They had to decide whether they believed Khan's version of what happened during those critical two minutes in the service station.
Khan had admitted telling some lies, but the jury should not think that it meant he must be guilty for that reason alone.
The judge said the video was the primary evidence, and the jury might find it a "very powerful piece of evidence."
However there were gaps in the video and it did not tell the whole story.
"You might think if it did, you would not be here."
She said the crown and defence asked the jury to draw different inferences from what was seen on the tape.
The crown says that the crime was pre-planned and that Khan threatened to blow up the service station the previous day, but the defence maintained that it was a terrible accident that happened during a fast moving struggle.
Ms Hussein attacked Khan first, the defence said.
And fearing that it might look like he was robbing the place he tried to drag Ms Hussein by the hair to the phone to call the police.
The jury deliberated for three hours before reaching a verdict this afternoon.
- HERALD STAFF
Man found guilty in death by fire trial
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