Taxi driver stabbed mum-to be to death just weeks after he took her as second wife

Cabbie murdered a mum-to-be weeks after taking her as a second wife in an Islamic marriage ceremony.

Saiba Khatoon was killed in a ferocious attack involving three knives at her home on Darlington Road, Rochdale. She was found in a pool of blood by her seven-year-old son, Faris, and died the next day, on her 27th birthday, after being repeatedly stabbed in the heart.

Siraj Arif, of Armstronghurst Close, Rochdale, is now beginning a life sentence after admitting her murder in a Manchester Crown Court hearing. He must serve 21 years before release can be considered.


The court heard that Saiba’s pregnancy had triggered a series of arguments between Arif and his wives and Saiba's family, climaxing in the killing.

His barrister, Anthony Hayden QC, told court that ‘remorseful’ Arif was ‘a man caught in two very complex relationships’ between traditional Nazia and Westernised Saiba.

“It’s plain that in the months leading up to this fateful day the defendant was under considerable pressure. On May 7, entirely out of character, he snapped", the defence lawyer added.

Saiba was 19 weeks pregnant when she was murdered by Arif, Kim Hollis QC, prosecuting, said.

The pair had been childhood sweethearts, but were both married to other people when they started having an affair in 2004.The relationship led to Saiba ending her happy marriage to a doctor, the father of her son Faris,

But Arif, who drove minicabs for Joe Baxie’s Taxis in Rochdale, remained with his wife and obtained his wife’s grudging consent to take Saiba as a second bride, allowable in Islamic law, last December.

On the day before the killing, Arif had a violent argument with his first wife Nazia about Saiba’s pregnancy.

The following day, Saiba’s sister confronted Nazia and upset her. The fatal argument between Arif and Saiba followed.

By midnight on May 7, less than two hours after a phone call to her mother about her forthcoming birthday, Saiba had been fatally attacked.

Faris raised the alarm, running out into the street screaming ‘my mum, my mum’. Her next-door neighbour found her dying of 15 stab wounds in the kitchen, with broken blades of knives used in the attack strewn about her.

Hours after the killing Arif twice rang police. In the first, garbled call, he said he had ‘stabbed somebody’, and that he would ‘be with you in an hour.’

In the second call, he said: “We had a fight yeah, she picked a knife up and told me she was going to kill my baby, either I’ll kill my baby or I’ll kill you and I ended up grabbing the knife and shoving it in her.”

He later told a pal at the taxi rank ‘I’m finished’. He was on his way to the police station when he was arrested.

In statement, Saiba’s sister, Sara Ali, said the family had been devastated by the loss of Saiba, who was the eldest of eight children.

“She was such a loving person; she did not deserve to die, especially in those circumstances. Our happy life has been turned upside down by one violent act. Faris was extremely close to his mum and was devastated by her death. We worry so much about how this has affected him and can only hope and pray he has the resilience to cope.”

Sentencing, Judge Michael Henshell said: “It was a merciless and sustained attack on a woman in her own home 18 to 19 weeks pregnant and whilst her seven-year-old was in the house. He certainly saw the awful aftermath in the kitchen before he ran and got help. What he saw, and the memory of it, will live with him for a considerable period if not the remainder of his life and he must grow up without his mother, who died in these awful circumstances. She must have suffered in the circumstances of the attack, given the time it took, and also with the knowledge that she was pregnant and that her son was in the house.”

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