A woman was jailed for at least 17 years yesterday for stabbing her husband to death a month after their marriage.
Mahmuda Khatun, 28, stabbed Mohammed Amin Miah through the heart on his 28th birthday in August last year.
Judge Brian Barker jailed her for life at the Old Bailey and told her: "In my view, it was wicked." He rejected claims Khatun had been put under pressure to marry Mr Miah. Judge Barker told Khatun: "You went into this with your eyes open."
Khatun, an optician's shop assistant, of Bow, east London, was found guilty of murder. The judge said her first arranged marriage had failed and she enjoyed greater freedom in her own flat before returning to her family. "It may be that Amin turned out to be a disappointment to you," he said.
Kim Hollis, QC, defending, said: "She was caught between two worlds with tragic consequences. She wanted the type of life which other women can have in the United Kingdom."
Khatun had been born in Bangladesh and came to Britain with her family when she was six.
Crispin Aylett QC, prosecuting, said she had hidden a knife in her burkha disguise when she arrived at the marital home in Bethnal Green, east London.
He said: "As he opened the door to her, he must have seen his bride in a burkha, not clothing she usually wore, before she plunged the knife into his heart.
"Thereafter, the defendant set about creating a smoke-screen that was designed to put her beyond suspicion."
Khatun initially said that on the night of the murder she had been locked out of the flat and looked through the letterbox to see blood on the walls in the hallway.
But mobile phone records proved her wrong. "It was the young widow, the defendant - who had murdered her husband of just 33 days," he said.
Khatun told the court she had accidentally stabbed her husband during a row as she was trying to leave him.
Mr Miah had been a gentle, hard-working kitchen porter at a West End casino.
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