‘Callous and selfish’ killer jailed for life over death of deaf woman

A “callous and selfish” killer nicknamed Nasty has been jailed for life for fatally punching a profoundly deaf young woman in the neck and leaving her to die in the street.

Duane Owusu, 36, threw aspiring accountant Zahwa Mukhtar out of an overcrowded Mercedes car and felled her with a single strike after attending a rave in east London.

Rather than summoning help, Owusu and his friends drove off as Ms Mukhtar lay prone on the pavement at 4.30am, having suffered a fatal head injury.

After an Old Bailey trial, Owusu was found guilty of murdering Ms Mukhtar, 27, who had worked at the Young Vic Theatre as a finance assistant.

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On Tuesday, Judge Richard Marks KC handed Owusu a life sentence with a minimum term of 16 years and six months in jail.

In a televised sentencing, Judge Marks told him he had struck Ms Mukhtar with a “forceful blow for which there was absolutely no justification”.

Despite pleas by his friends to get her help, the defendant had said “no-one cares about her” and insisted they leave.

Judge Marks said: “I accept you did not know that she was gravely injured, nor indeed the injuries were so severe they were unrecoverable, but the point is you could not have cared less.

“More callous and selfish behaviour it is difficult to imagine.”
In a statement read to the court, the victim’s brother Jamaluddin Mukhtar said: “Zahwa Mukhtar was a daughter, granddaughter, sister and niece, a remarkable young woman whose life was shaped by both hardship and extraordinary perseverance.”
He said his sister became deaf at the age of three after contracting meningitis but never allowed her disability to “hold her back”.

She was known for her “constant smile and infectious laughter” and had always encouraged others to believe in themselves, he said.

He added: “Her warmth, kindness and belief in the potential of others were qualities that left a lasting impression on all who knew her.

“Losing her has left an immeasurable void in our hearts.

A beautiful determined and loving soul whose absence will be deeply felt forever.”
In mitigation, Michael Borrelli KC said Owusu was “deeply sorry” for the hurt Ms Mukhtar’s family must feel.

Jurors in his trial were not told that Owusu had been jailed for eight years in 2010 for being the getaway driver in a botched robbery in which a Matalan shop manager was fatally stabbed.

Having been convicted of conspiracy to rob, convicted drug dealer Owusu was released in 2013, but was on bail relating to a fresh allegation of supplying class A drugs at the time of Ms Mukhtar’s death.

Ms Mukhtar had never met Owusu before she came across his group in the early hours of August 16 last year, and inhaled laughing gas balloons with them in Stoke Newington.

On the journey, she had argued with one of Owusu’s female friends, pulled her hair and threatened to stab someone, jurors were told.

Owusu grabbed her phone and threw it out of the car before ejecting her and aiming two kicks at her face as she sat on the pavement, the prosecution said.

When she got up, Owusu punched her in the neck, causing her to fall on to the ground, the court was told.

The incident was captured on graphic CCTV footage and witnessed by Owusu’s horrified friends.

Witness Paige Allen described Ms Mukhtar pleading with Owusu to stop before he landed the fatal blow.

She told jurors: “He was just rage.

He looked like a monster.

His behaviour was just wrong.

She just fell.

Just fell backwards.

“I went to help her but he screamed at me to get in the car.”
On leaving the scene in Chadwell Heath, Owusu and his group were stopped and searched by police a short distance away.

They were detained for about 50 minutes before officers investigated reports from the public of a woman on the pavement down the road.

Ms Mukhtar was found unresponsive at 5.31am.

Despite the efforts of police and paramedics at the scene, she was pronounced dead at 6.21am, having suffered a fractured skull and brain injury.

In his evidence, Owusu had told jurors that he did not appreciate that Ms Mukhtar was seriously injured at the time.

However, Judge Marks said: “He left her there thinking only of himself.”