Aya Hachem: Men jailed for student's drive-by murder

Seven men have been jailed for murdering a student who was shot dead in a feud between two rival tyre firms.

Aya Hachem, 19, was "in the wrong place at the wrong time" when she was killed in the botched drive-by shooting in Blackburn on 17 May last year.

Tyre firm boss Feroz Suleman, 40, had arranged the execution of a rival businessman but the gunman he hired shot dead Ms Hachem instead.

He was jailed at Preston Crown Court for life with a minimum of 34 years.

The judge, Mr Justice Turner, told Suleman he was "the driving force behind the whole deadly enterprise from beginning to end and followed through this plan with obsessive determination".

"When you were in prison you commented you were the captain of the ship and if you were to go down then everyone would go down with you. How right you were," he said.

Ms Hachem was shot as she was walking to the supermarket to buy food for her family to eat when they broke their Ramadan fast.

The Salford University law student, who dreamed of becoming a solicitor, was fatally struck by the second of two bullets fired at 15:00 BST.

Gunman Zamir Raja, 33, who agreed to carrying out the shooting for £1,500, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 34 years. 

Accomplices Kashif Manzoor, 26, Ayaz Hussain, 36, Abubakr Satia, 32, Anthony Ennis, 31, and Uthman Satia, 29, were also jailed for life.

In a moving victim impact statement, Ms Hachem's father Ismail said he had brought his family to the UK to "seek a better life" in 2011 after fleeing from violence in Lebanon.

He told the court his daughter was a "shining star in our lives and would always make us smile and happy even when times were bad".

"Aya was determined to do well in life. I once told her she would be the prime minister," he said.

"They didn't just kill Aya they killed our whole family. The light in our lives has gone out, all of our hopes and dreams have gone."

The feud between the two businesses started in early 2019 when Quickshine Tyres, which previously only washed cars, began selling tyres next door to RI Tyres.

The bitter dispute escalated and Suleman hatched a murderous plot to kill Pachah Khan, the proprietor of Quickshine, with the help of his accomplices.

The court heard how a Toyota Avensis driven by Ennis with hitman Raja on board drove past Quickshine on three occasions shortly before the fatal fourth journey.

Footage from CCTV cameras captured Suleman standing outside his premises with a "ringside seat" to the shooting.

Giving evidence at the 12-week trial, father-of-two Suleman, who was previously jailed in 2001 for causing the death of a 67-year-old man by dangerous driving, denied any knowledge of a plot to kill Mr Khan.

However, Hussain told jurors that Suleman wanted Mr Khan "roughed up" and introduced him to Raja who suggested a drive-by with shots fired in the air to scare him.

Suleman was quoted a price of £1,500 and excitedly agreed straightaway, said Hussain, who also claimed there was no plan to kill Mr Khan.

On Tuesday, jurors took less than four hours to find the seven men guilty of murdering Ms Hachem and the attempted murder of Mr Khan.

Sentencing them, Mr Justice Turner said: "None of you seven showed any remorse in the aftermath of the shooting. Together you tried to lie, scheme and plot your way out of trouble.

"It was not long before you all started to sacrifice your co-defendants in an attempt to save your own skins."

Judy Chapman, 26, of Great Harwood, who drove the gunman and driver from Bolton with her boyfriend Uthman Satia, was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter and will be sentenced on 1 October.

Correction: This story was published on 5 August but republished in error on 29 November