Restaurateur denies murder after body is found in pieces

The owner of a London pizza restaurant has denied charges of having his partner murdered, then scattering his dismembered body parts around Bradford after a bungled attempt to burn the body in a wheelie bin.

The Old Bailey heard last week that Ali Shah, co-partner in Sydenham's Perfect Pizza, had hired two hitmen to murder Rajminkant Patel on 27 October 1997 after the two became embroiled in an acrimonious legal dispute. Ali and his twin cousins, 18-year-old Asghar and Akbar Shah, also deny charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

The prosecution alleges that the three Shahs drove the corpse to Bradford in the boot of Patel's own car and, after attempting to burn it in a wheelie bin, chopped it up with a meat cleaver, hammer and chisel, and strewed it around waste ground.

Parts of Patel's body (but not his head, hands and feet) have been recovered, and traces of his blood detected in the restaurant.

The case is expected to run for at least a month.

by Stuart Smith