Moment ranting killer threatens his murder victim’s brother is caught on camera as he is jailed for life for killing ex-friend and dumping his burned body in shallow grave
- Amraj Poonia murdered his former friend before burning and burying him
- Thanks to an brave witness, cops were charged him and he was jailed for life
This is the moment when a killer, who murdered a former friend before dumping his partially burned body in a shallow grave, was caught on camera ranting and raving at his victim’s family while cops arrested him.
Violent thug Amraj Poonia ambushed Mohammed Shah Subhani, 27, at R&J Plumbing in Hounslow, west London, on May 7, 2019.
After entering the premises, Mr Subhani was killed and his body rolled up in a carpet to be transported to woodland where it was burnt and buried.
Later the same day, Poonia ‘unashamedly’ went to the Subhani family home in Hounslow and acted as if nothing had happened, an Old Bailey jury was told.
The case was initially treated as a missing persons inquiry before a murder investigation was launched and possible suspects identified.
Mohammed Shah Subhani was lured to Amraj Poonia’s family plumbing business where he was ambushed and murdered
Poonia, pictured, was caught on camera ranting and raving at his victim’s family as he was arrested
Mohammed Shah Subhani, known as Shah, was reported missing on May 7, 2019 when he failed to return to his home in Hounslow, west London
The breakthrough came around six months later when an individual, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, walked into a police station, admitted to taking part in the disposal of Mr Subhani’s body and named his killer.
Acting on the information, Mr Subhani’s badly decomposed body was found miles away in woodland in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire.
The court was told that Mr Subhani was killed at the Poonia business after falling out over a kilo of cannabis that went missing after it was given to Amraj Poonia for safekeeping.
But Poonia stole the drugs instead and staged a ‘theft’ of them from a car as a cover for this.
Associate Mohanad Riad had recruited two local drug dealers to help stage the fake theft but suspicions erupted into incidents of violence in the weeks before the killing, jurors heard.
The loss of the drugs left Mr Subhani in debt to a local drug dealer and believing Poonia to be responsible caused increasing animosity between the two.
According to the Met Police, there were assaults against Poonia by the Subhani family and as a result and threats were made against them for retribution.
Contact was made between Poonia and Mr Subhani and an agreement was made to meet at Poonia’s family plumbing business.
Mr Subhani arrived at the industrial estate in Hounslow and shortly after entering the premises he was ambushed and murdered.
Following Mr Subhani’s disappearance, his family reported him missing on May 7 and a full missing person investigation was started.
The family attended Derby Road industrial estate to conduct their own CCTV enquiries on 13 May.
Here they encountered Poonia and a fight ensued between him and the Subhani brothers.
Because of the fight, police were called as Poonia had been seen on bus CCTV footage to be in possession of a large knife.
Following the fight, a witness described how they had heard Amraj Poonia say to one of the brothers ‘I will kill you like I killed your brother’.
Pictured, detectives investigating disappearance and murder of Mohammed Shah Subhani
Mr Subhani’s remains were found in woodland between Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross, Buckinhamshire, shortly before Christmas 2019
Poonia was arrested for the affray and, just after his arrest, was recorded on an officers’ body-worn video saying: ‘I’m telling you this on live camera (He then named one of Shah’s brothers). You pig rat, snitch, gangster wannabe, you’re dead, yeah.’
Officers then conducted an extensive forensic search of the plumbing business and small samples of blood were located which matched that of Mr Subhani.
The investigation was then passed on to a Homicide team of the Met’s Specialist Crime Command.
At first, there was insufficient evidence to charge the suspects because they could not find Mr Subhani’s body.
It was six months later that the breakthrough came when the unnamed person present at the burial site, and not involved in the murder, told the police where to find him.
A post-mortem was unable to determine the cause of death, due to the loss of some of the remains, significantly, the hyoid bone.
But the pathologist did comment that the circumstances of the burial indicated an ‘unnatural death’.
Following an Old Bailey trial, Amraj Poonia, 28, aka Bigs, from Horley, was found guilty of murder and perverting the course of justice.
On Thursday, he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years.
His brother Raneel Poonia, 26, aka Ace, from Slough, was jailed for seven years for perverting the course of justice.
READ MORE: Father-of-one was murdered at a plumber’s warehouse before his body was burnt and dumped in a shallow woodland grave amid war between drugs gangs
Riad, 23, known as Emz, from Hounslow, and Mahamud Ismail, 27, aka Skinny and Major, from Brentford, were found guilty of the same offence and jailed for two years and five-and-a-half years respectively.
In victim impact statements, Mr Subhani’s family condemned the killers as ‘cowardly animals’.
His sister Iqra Subhani said her brother had been robbed of his life ‘in the most cowardly and heinous way by his so-called friends’.
Addressing the dock, she said: ‘Even after you brutally killed him, you did not spare him – you continued to torment him after he was dead.
‘My brother had the spirit of a lion. But a lion can only do so much when he is ambushed by hyenas and that is what you cowardly animals did.’
Mr Subhani’s father, Gul Subhani, described his son’s murder as ‘pure evil’, saying: ‘They disregarded his body like a piece of rubbish. He did not go there to fight. He was a lover, not a fighter.’
The thought of his son’s body being rolled into a carpet and set alight ‘makes our skin crawl’, he said.
He added: ‘This is an unending pain for all of us, a pain we will take to our grave.
‘How can we have closure when we could not even have 100 per cent of our boy back?’
Mr Subhani’s partner Thelma, who was pregnant with their child when he was killed, told the court: ‘He was my best friend and confidante all in one.’
Following the convictions, Detective Chief Inspector Vicky Tunstall said: ‘Amraj Poonia is a dangerous individual and I have no doubt that the streets of west London are far safer now he, and his accomplices, have been convicted – I hope that this outcome and the diligent investigation that led to their conviction improves the trust that communities can have in the Metropolitan Police.’
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