Murder verdict on gun supplier
Reporter: DAWN MARSDEN
Date published: 11 February 2011
A HATHERSHAW man has been convicted of the murder of an innocent shop worker — but two of his Oldham gang members remain on the run.
Arfan Rafiq (26) of Villa Road, was being sentenced today after he supplied the gun that was used to kill 27-year-old Nasar Shazad at Brookhouse Wines in Salford on July 4, 2009.
Meanwhile, police are continuing to hunt three men wanted in connection to the murder, who they believe have left the country and initially headed for Islamabad, Pakistan.
Gulfan Khan (36), formerly of Howgill Crescent, Oldham, and Mohammed Safdar (30), formerly of Pitt Street, Oldham, were arrested and bailed pending further inquiries but have since disappeared. Tanveer Akbar (30), formerly of Bolton, left the country at the time of the killing and was never arrested.
Also found guilty of murder at Manchester Crown Court yesterday was Mohammed Hafiz, of Cheetham Hill.
Simeon Henderson, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to murder at an earlier hearing.
Ryan Manning, of Higher Ince, was convicted of manslaughter and Akmal Afzal, of Bolton, was convicted of assisting an offender and possession of a prohibited weapon.
In the months leading up to the murder, tensions between rival groups of criminals in Bolton had been rising and one of the groups enlisted the help of some people from Oldham.
Nasar Shazad was standing behind the counter serving a customer when Henderson walked up to him and lifted a bag which was concealing a gun.
Within seconds Henderson fired a number of shots at Nasar with bullets shattering bottles on the shelves behind the counter and becoming lodged in the wall. Customers and other staff fled the shop in fear.
Nasar fell to the floor and Henderson fled from the shop, dropping the bag the gun had been concealed in as he left. The incident was caught on the shop’s CCTV system.
Henderson fled the scene in a Mazda Xedos, driven by Manning.
Afzal was waiting near-by in a taxi, Manning dropped Henderson off and Afzal drove Henderson back to Oldham.
The next day, a man found a sub machine gun wrapped in tracksuit bottoms as he walked along Hinton Street in Hathershaw.
The gun was forensically linked to Manning and the trousers were identical to the ones Henderson was seen wearing in the shop.
Senior investigating officer, Det Chief Supt Mary Doyle, said: “The actions of these men were beyond comprehension.
“This was a planned act of extreme violence, in which Hafiz and Rafiq were instrumental, against a man who was completely innocent with no connections to any of the killers.
“It has taken officers 18 months of painstaking work to unravel the complexities of this conspiracy.
On December 15, 2008, shots were fired inside a car hire office in Hawksley Street, Werneth, but no one was injured. Henderson admitted carrying out the shooting on the instruction of Hafiz. They drove to the scene of the shooting in convoy.
On March 3, 2009, a 28-year-old man was shot in the buttock in Bolton Street, Glodwick. Henderson admitted that he fired the shots on the instructions of Hafiz and was driven away from the scene by Rafiq.
