Husband guilty of Geeta Aulakh murder
A man has been found guilty of murdering his wife after she began divorce proceedings.
Mother-of-two Geeta Aulakh, 28, had her hand severed with a machete during the attack in Greenford, west London, in 2009.
Harpreet Aulakh, 32, of Greenford, ordered the murder.
Sher Singh, 19, of Southall, west London, and Jaswant Dhillon, 30, of Ilford, east London, were also found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey.
Aftab Jafferjee QC, prosecuting, said behind the "savage and determined" attack was Aulakh's "chilling" reaction to his wife's desire to leave him.
"Geeta Aulakh was in the process of divorcing him and that would not be tolerated," he said.
"No one else in the world could possibly have wished this utterly innocent and hard-working woman and mother any harm."
Aulakh, described by Mr Jafferjee as "smug and utterly unrepentant", claimed in court his wife was his "first love" and he did not kill her.
But the court was told Aulakh had ordered the murder after his wife plucked up the courage to ask for a divorce following years of abuse and harassment by him.
He was wrongly convinced that she was having an affair with another man.
He had thought he was in the clear because he made sure he was captured on CCTV in a pub at the time of the murder.
In more CCTV footage shown to the court, Aulakh could be seen buying the machete in a store just days before the murder.
Jurors are still considering the case of Harpreet Singh, 20, of Slough, Berkshire, and were sent home to continue deliberations on Friday.
Mr Singh denies murder.
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