Two men have been jailed for life for the savage gangland murder of a student who was lured to a lonely spot and bludgeoned to death.

Asim Khan, 27, of Devon Street, Farnworth, and Faisal Aslam, 26, of Clarendon Road, Whalley Range, both denied murder at Manchester Crown Court.

But, after they found guilty by a jury yesterday, they were told they must serve 30 years in prison for killing Umair Waseem in a plot to keep £7,000 of ‘hush’ money he had promised by gangsters.

Andrew Menary QC said that Umair Waseem, 22, of Fern Street, Deane, Bolton, was studying electronic engineering at Bolton University.

But, unknown to his
respectable family, he was leading a secret life as a drug dealer and gangster’s ‘strong-arm man’.

After he was attacked by a gang of hammer-wielding rivals in Bolton in 2008 he was promised £7,000 to withdraw his complaint against two men. Asim Khan was supposed to act as a go-between, but never handed the money over to his friend Umair Waseem.

When Mr Waseem began to pester him for the money, Khan set up what Mr Justice Parker described as an ‘elaborate ruse’ to lure him to his death. Believing he was going to take part in a £500,000 robbery or contract killing, Mr Waseem drove to Angelzarke Reservoir near Bolton, in a Vauxhall Vectra he had been told to hire for the bogus job.

The following day he was found dead in the snow. He had been hogtied and suffered catastrophic head injuries.

Mr Justice Parker said that Umair Waseem was ‘naive,
seduced by glamour and fell in with the wrong kind of people’.

He said Asim Khan had deliberately posed as Mr Waseem’s friend and confidant to get him killed and that while he was not present when it happened, he was a ‘principal architect of the arrangements to’ murder Umair Waseem’.

The judge added: “The killing itself was brutal, the setting was a lonely and remote spot, especially late at night in the dead of winter."

After the murder Asim Khan and Faisal Aslam tried to sell the blood-stained Vauxhall Vectra to Chorlton car dealer.

The court heard it is likely there were a number of attackers and that it was possible that the gangsters had never intended to pay Umair Waseem, since they went to jail for the assault anyway, following the testimony of other witnesses.

The judge said he was ‘satisfied’ that Fasial Aslam was there when Umair Waseem was ‘cruelly bludgeoned to death’.

Sentencing them both to life, he said: “This was a cold-blooded, premeditated, carefully planned and savage murder for financial gain.”

Mr Waseem’s family said: “We miss our son so much, the loss of his life in such a tragic and horrific way has left such a big hole in our lives which is impossible to fill.”

Aroon Asad, 21, of Vaughan Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, was acquitted of murder.