A man and three contract killers he hired to carry out the cold-blooded execution of his sister's husband because she married for love against her family's wishes were jailed for life yesterday.

Arza Khan arranged the murder of Mian Shahid Mehmood, 29, - who was also his wife's brother - to punish his sister, Yasmin Bibi Rakha, for her refusal to marry her first cousin.

Yasmin, 25, had been promised to her uncle's son when she was still a child, but during a visit to Pakistan in 2004 she fell in love with Mr Mehmood and married him secretly.

Her husband was living in hiding in Halifax, West Yorkshire, a short distance from his wife's family home, when he was taken from his house in February last year and driven to nearby moors, where he was shot dead.

Khan, 28, from Halifax, and the three men he hired, Sam Lee, 30, John Reeves, 55, and Naveed Mahmood, 23, all from Sheffield, were found guilty of murder at Leeds Crown Court.

Condemning the killers yesterday as men for whom life “seems so cheap”, Judge James Stewart, QC, told Khan that he must spend a minimum of 32 years in prison before he becomes eligible for parole.

The judge said that a “glaringly aggravating” feature of the case was the “significant degree of planning which went into this cold-blooded execution”. “This was a planned execution of an innocent victim for no reason other than he married the person he loved, contrary to your wishes, Arza Khan,” he said.

“There is no honour in what you did, quite the reverse. You have only brought dishonour and disgrace upon your family, which has been rent asunder by your cruelty and arrogance. This sort of behaviour in a civilised world cannot be tolerated.”

Reeves - already serving a 14-year sentence for his role in another shooting soon after Mr Mehmood's murder - and Mahmood were told that they would spend at least 32 years in jail, while Lee must serve at least 25 years.

Judge Stewart said the evidence pointed to Reeves being the gunman, with Mahmood “the fixer” and Lee “the muscle behind the operation” in case their victim put up a struggle.

Detective Superintendent Tim Forber, who led the murder inquiry, described the killing as “a callous and cowardly act by men who touted themselves as guns for hire and who were prepared to commit murder for money.

“They abducted Shahid, took him to an isolated country lane and shot him while he was completely defenceless,” he said. “Arza Khan recruited and paid this team of killers. His reason was simply that Shahid Mehmood had married his sister against the wishes of his family.”

The jury failed to reach a verdict on a murder charge against a second brother of Yasmin, Tahir Mahmood, 22, who will face a retrial later.

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