Jury out in trial of builder accused of niece's rape and murder

A jury has retired to consider verdicts in the trial of a builder who is accused of kidnapping, raping and slitting the throats of two young women.

Mujahid Arshid, 33, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of murdering his niece Celine Dookhran, 20, and the attempted murder of a second woman.

The court has heard how Arshid, with the help of labourer Vincent Tappu, 28, snatched the women in July last year and bundled them into a pick-up truck bound and gagged.

The defendant allegedly took them to a six-bedroom house he was renovating in Kingston, south west London, where he killed Barclays worker Ms Dookhran and stuffed her body into a freezer.

Jurors have heard how the other woman survived by talking Arshid around after he cut her throat.

But the defendant has blamed the surviving woman for killing Ms Dookhran in a fit of jealousy after he had consensual sex with both of them.

Arshid, formerly of south-west London, denies murder, attempted murder, rape of both women and the previous sexual assault and assault by penetration of the surviving woman when she was about 13.

Together with Tappu, from Acton, west London, he has also pleaded not guilty to the women's kidnap and possession of a taser.

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