Zahid Younis murdered two women in Canning Town, in the London Borough of Newham, eighteen months apart. Henriett Szucs died in November 2016, months after she had moved in with him. Mihrican Mustafa, known to her family as Canan and to most people as Jan, died in May 2018. Neither death was known to the authorities until April 2019, when Metropolitan Police officers went looking for Younis himself and uncovered what had happened to both women.
He was 36 when a jury at Southwark Crown Court convicted him of both murders on September 3, 2020. By then he had a long record of violence against young women and girls, and the judge who sentenced him, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, described a man who had spent his adult life deceiving, controlling and harming vulnerable people. She imposed life imprisonment with a minimum term of 38 years. He declined to leave his cell to hear it.
Younis's date of birth was printed as 07.08.84 when he was charged with murder in January 2020, and he was 35 at that time. He used the name Ali Younis as well as his own, and he was known to acquaintances as "Boxer." His childhood, schooling and family background are not on record. He lived in Custom House and Canning Town, neighboring districts of Newham.
The judge said in her sentencing remarks that his history of controlling and harming vulnerable women went back to his teenage years. Former partners gave evidence at his trial. One told the jury that when she was 17 he had been controlling, violent and overbearing, waiting outside her house and escorting her everywhere.
In 2004 he married a teenage girl in a religious ceremony at a mosque in Walthamstow, east London. He was later jailed for two and a half years on counts involving her, including assault. After his release in 2007 he began a relationship with another teenage girl. The relationship was controlling and violent. For his treatment of her he was sentenced to four years and eleven months for two counts of wounding and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
By his late twenties and early thirties he lived in Newham on very little: the judge noted that he lived on state benefits. Detective Chief Inspector Simon Harding of the Metropolitan Police, who led the murder investigation, later said that Younis used drugs and would manipulate and lie to people to get money. Harding called his life "a pattern of lies." In September 2018 Younis pleaded guilty to stealing 60 pounds from a 91-year-old neighbor, and he was in prison between September and November 2018. He was later charged with assaulting a police officer at Forest Gate Police Station; the outcome of that charge is not on record.
Henriett Szucs was 32 when she died, according to the judge. She was a mother of three, and her mother, who lived abroad, had lost touch with her after she moved to the United Kingdom. Detective Chief Inspector Harding said she had been in abusive relationships before, and that Younis preyed on her. She met him in January 2016 and moved in with him in Canning Town in March 2016.
Letters she wrote to him were recovered by police. Harding said they showed that she was "really in love with him in her own way." Notes believed to be hers, read to the jury, described his treatment of her. Younis denied that the two of them had been in a long-term relationship.
The judge found that in the months they lived together he controlled, humiliated and abused her. The judge said she was vulnerable when they met. A statement read on behalf of her mother said she had been a kind young woman.
Henriett Szucs died in Canning Town in November 2016, about ten months after she met him. The cause of her death could not be established precisely, but the jury was sure that serious violence by Younis caused it. The judge found that she had suffered over a prolonged period before her death.
Younis went on living in Canning Town. He kept up his habits of borrowing and lying, and at his trial he said that in this period he was "going back and forth" rather than living in one place.
Mihrican Mustafa was born in London, the youngest of four children. Her family called her Canan; friends called her Mary Jane or Jan. The judge described her as a mother of two who saw her children regularly. Her cousin, Ayse Hussein, described her as kind and loving, someone who wanted to help others and who "lit up the room." Her family called her a devoted mother and "a gentle being" who had her whole life ahead of her.
She had come through hard times. Her cousin said she lost her home after falling into rent arrears and stayed for a time with friends in Custom House. She was 37 when she died. The prosecution said she and Younis had been in contact, and the jury heard that his number was saved in her phone under "Boxer." Younis claimed he had only "seen her about."
Jan Mustafa died in May 2018 in Canning Town, eighteen months after Henriett Szucs. The judge found that Younis intended to kill her.
The investigation that led to Younis began with a different concern. In February 2019 he met a woman outside the Stratford Centre who described herself as a missionary and writer. Over about three months she sent him about 1,400 pounds, as well as cash. He told her he was homeless, that he was being treated for cancer, that he was himself a victim of domestic abuse, and that he wanted to become a Christian, with a baptism planned for April 28. She described many of his 423 messages to her as harassing and manipulative. When he stopped replying in late April 2019, she asked the police to check on him.
On April 26, 2019, Metropolitan Police officers went to look for him in Canning Town. What they learned that day led the force to open a murder investigation into the deaths of both women.
Younis was arrested on April 30, 2019, in the W10 postal district of London. On his arrest he said: "It's my house, it's my problem. No one else is involved." In later interviews he answered "no comment."
On May 1, 2019, Younis was charged with two lesser counts relating to the two women, one for each. He appeared at Kingston Crown Court later that month. On January 31, 2020, the Metropolitan Police announced that he had been charged with two counts of murder, and he appeared in custody at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court on February 14, 2020. Detective Chief Inspector Harding said at the time that the force's hearts went out to the women's friends and families.
Younis pleaded guilty to the two lesser counts. He denied murder. The judge later noted that he waited about a year before he disclosed his defense, until all the prosecution evidence had been served, and that he changed his legal representation three times.
The trial opened at Southwark Crown Court on August 10, 2020, before Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb and a jury. Duncan Penny QC, with Peter Ratliff, prosecuted for the Crown Prosecution Service. It lasted three weeks.
Penny told the jury that both women were vulnerable and had been living chaotic lives, and that both had suffered very significant violence before their deaths. He said the women were known to have been with Younis in the weeks before they died, and that evidence tied both of them to him. The jury also heard the evidence of his former partners and of the woman he had met in Stratford.
The defense argued that the case was circumstantial and that there was no convincing evidence that Younis had killed either woman or been present when either died.
Younis gave evidence. He said he had met Henriett Szucs in hospital, where both were patients. He told the jury that he had been out when she died, and that he did not know how she died.
About Jan Mustafa, he said that he had not killed her and did not know how she died. He claimed that another man had been involved and had threatened to expose him.
Penny told him he was "a master of an intricate and developing story" and that his account was "a story, a yarn, a tall tale." Younis answered, "Absolutely not," and accused the police and the prosecutor of coaching witnesses. Detective Chief Inspector Harding later said that the man Younis blamed had been in prison at the relevant time.
The jury deliberated over three days, for 16 hours and six minutes in all. On September 3, 2020, it found Younis guilty of both murders. Jan Mustafa's family had attended every day of the trial; when the verdicts were read, they called out "yes" from the public gallery. Her older sister said, "Thank you God, thank you." Outside the court she told Younis to "rot in hell."
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb sentenced him the same day. Younis refused to come up from the cells, and she delivered her remarks to him in his absence, saying he would understand the court's reasoning when he found the courage to read them.
She called him an "arch-deceiver," a "heartless man and a narcissist" who had "preyed upon the vulnerable with superficial charm." She found no mitigation and no remorse. She said that the two women had been "beautiful and creative," and that he had robbed them of happiness in life and of dignity in death. Five children, she noted, had lost their mothers.
The sentence for murder is fixed by law: life imprisonment. The judge's task was to set the minimum term. She considered a whole life order and decided against it. She took the statutory starting point of 30 years for the murder of two or more people and increased it for the aggravating features: the targeting of vulnerable women, the prolonged suffering Henriett Szucs endured, the fact that the murders were separate events more than a year apart, and his conduct after each death. His medical condition, she said, was no reason to reduce the term.
She fixed the minimum term at 38 years. After deducting the 490 days he had spent in custody on remand, that left 36 years and 240 days to be served from the day of sentence before he could ask the Parole Board for release. On each of the two lesser counts she imposed five years, reduced by one-fifth for his guilty pleas, to run concurrently with the life sentences. Without the murder convictions, she said, those terms would have been consecutive.
The framework the judge applied was Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, as it stood in September 2020. Parliament has required a life sentence for every adult convicted of murder; Schedule 21 tells the judge how to fix the minimum term, the part of the sentence that must be served in prison before release can even be considered.
The schedule sets out a ladder of starting points. A whole life order, under which the offender is never released, is the normal starting point for an offender aged 21 or over where the seriousness of the offense is exceptionally high. The cases the schedule lists for that tier include the murder of two or more people where each murder involved a substantial degree of premeditation or planning, the abduction of the victim, or sexual or sadistic conduct. Below that, a starting point of 30 years applies where seriousness is particularly high, and the listed examples include, in plain terms, "the murder of two or more persons." The ordinary starting point for an adult is 15 years.
The judge then moves up or down from the starting point. The aggravating factors in the schedule include a victim who was particularly vulnerable, and mental or physical suffering inflicted on the victim before death. The mitigating factors include an intention to cause serious harm rather than to kill, a lack of premeditation and a mental disorder that lowered the offender's culpability. Adjustments can lead to a minimum term of any length.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb's decision tracked that structure. Two murders took the case to the 30-year tier. She did not find the features that would normally call for a whole life order, and so she began at 30 years and added eight for the aggravating features she identified, with nothing to set against them. The same framework now sits in Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Code.
A life sentence does not end at the minimum term. An offender serving life can be released only after the minimum term has been served, and only if the Parole Board is satisfied that keeping the offender in prison is no longer necessary to protect the public. A life prisoner who is released stays on licence for the rest of his life and can be recalled to prison if he is considered a risk, even without committing a new offense. The judge told Younis that, if he were ever released, he would remain on licence for life. She also warned that he might never be released at all.
Jan Mustafa's family criticized the Metropolitan Police almost from the day of the verdicts. Her sister said she was "disgusted" that it had taken the force a year to learn what had happened to her sister. Her cousin later said she believed that race, misogyny and victim-blaming had shaped the police response, and that Jan had not been treated as important because she was not, in her words, a "high-class working woman."
The Metropolitan Police rejected those criticisms. It said Jan Mustafa's circumstances justified the risk grading her case received, that officers had carried out many enquiries, and that Younis had not been considered a key figure in her life at the time. Officers had spoken to him during the inquiry and accepted his denial that he knew anything. The force referred its own handling of the case to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which allowed the Metropolitan Police to investigate itself. The finding was that senior officers had not supervised the inquiry as thoroughly as they could have. The force said that all such cases are now subject to senior oversight.
Ayse Hussein spoke out again after Baroness Louise Casey's review described the Metropolitan Police as institutionally racist and misogynistic. Her complaint was that her cousin had been judged by her circumstances rather than treated as a woman in danger.
Henriett Szucs's mother was unable to travel to London for the trial because of travel restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic. A statement read on her behalf said that she was deeply overwhelmed by her daughter's death, which had happened in a foreign country with a legal system she did not understand, and that no one deserved such a death.
Jan Mustafa's family were present throughout. Her cousin said after the verdicts that the family had justice but still did not know the truth, and that with Younis locked away, women would be safe from him. She urged women to leave early if a partner became violent. She said the family had lived through two years of intense emotion before the verdicts.
The judge's remark about the women's lost dignity was echoed by the detective who led the case. Harding called the families "incredibly brave" and said it had been hard for them to listen to Younis's lies in court.
Younis's refusal to attend his sentencing became part of a wider argument about the rights of bereaved families. Because he stayed in the cells, Jan Mustafa's family did not see him sentenced and he did not hear their victim personal statements. Her cousin said in 2023: "He needed to be there, he needed to listen to the victim statements, but no he chickened out and was a coward and hid in his cell." She said that families wanted to see offenders face to face, and that seeing them was part of grieving.
In April 2023 she backed a radio station's "Face the Family" campaign, which called for a law requiring offenders to attend their sentencing, with reasonable force available to bring them into the dock. The same refusal had been seen in other London and Liverpool cases, among them the killings of Zara Aleena in Ilford and of Olivia Pratt-Korbel in Liverpool.
The law changed in 2026. On April 30, 2026, the government announced that the Victims and Courts Bill had received Royal Assent, and named the families of Jan Mustafa, Olivia Pratt-Korbel, Sabina Nessa and Zara Aleena among those who had campaigned for offenders to attend their sentencing. The Victims and Courts Act 2026 adds a new power to the Sentencing Code. Where a convicted offender held in custody awaiting sentence in the Crown Court refuses, or is expected to refuse, to attend, the court may order him to attend. For an adult, a prison officer or custody officer may use reasonable force, where necessary and proportionate, to bring him to the courtroom. Failing to comply without reasonable excuse is a criminal contempt of court, and the court may impose prison sanctions on an offender who defies the order. The new power was not brought into force on Royal Assent, and its commencement depends on later regulations.
Ayse Hussein turned her cousin's death into a cause. On December 4, 2022, she staged the Table of Love and Loss at East Ham Town Hall, an event at which 23 bereaved families each set out a table of photographs and memories of the people they had lost. Support groups working on violence against women took part, and Simon Harding, by then retired from the Metropolitan Police, spoke. The Mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz, announced that the event would become an annual one. The women's charity Nia opened a refuge in London named Jan's Place.
In October 2024 Hussein joined the Killed Women network outside Parliament, where blue plaques were unveiled to remember murdered women and to call for changes to sentencing law. She told the gathering that all killers should serve a minimum of 25 years.
What happened in the last days of each woman's life is not fully known. Jan Mustafa's family said after the verdicts that they had justice but not the truth. Younis never gave an account that the jury accepted. His claim that another man, or other men, had been involved was rejected by the jury, and the detective who led the case said the man he blamed had been in prison at the relevant time.
How Henriett Szucs and Jan Mustafa each came to be with him in their last weeks is also only partly on record. Jan Mustafa's cousin asked the question aloud after the trial: how did Henriett ever meet him? Younis's own answer, that the two met as patients in hospital, rests on his word alone.
In 2024 Younis was serving life imprisonment. No appeal against his convictions or his minimum term has been reported. Under the order made in September 2020, he cannot be considered for release by the Parole Board until he has served 36 years and 240 days from the date of sentence, and the judge warned that he may never be released.
2004: Younis marries a teenage girl in a religious ceremony in Walthamstow; he is later jailed for two and a half years on counts involving her.
2007: After his release he begins a relationship with another teenage girl; he is later sentenced to four years and eleven months for two counts of wounding and one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
January 2016: Henriett Szucs meets Younis.
March 2016: She moves in with him in Canning Town.
November 2016: Henriett Szucs dies in Canning Town; the jury later convicts Younis of her murder.
May 2018: Mihrican "Jan" Mustafa dies in Canning Town; the jury later convicts Younis of her murder.
September 2018: Younis pleads guilty to stealing 60 pounds from a 91-year-old neighbor; he is in prison from September to November 2018.
February 2019: He meets a woman in Stratford who sends him about 1,400 pounds over the following months.
April 26, 2019: Metropolitan Police officers go to look for him in Canning Town; a murder investigation begins.
April 30, 2019: Younis is arrested in London.
May 1, 2019: He is charged with two lesser counts relating to the two women; he appears at Kingston Crown Court later in May.
January 31, 2020: He is charged with two counts of murder.
February 14, 2020: He appears in custody at Wimbledon Magistrates' Court.
August 10, 2020: His trial opens at Southwark Crown Court before Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb.
September 3, 2020: The jury convicts him of both murders. He refuses to attend his sentencing and receives life imprisonment with a minimum term of 38 years (36 years and 240 days after remand credit).
December 4, 2022: Jan Mustafa's cousin stages the first Table of Love and Loss at East Ham Town Hall.
April 2023: The family backs the "Face the Family" campaign for compulsory attendance at sentencing.
October 2024: Jan Mustafa is remembered in the Killed Women blue plaque event outside Parliament.
April 30, 2026: The government announces Royal Assent for the Victims and Courts Act 2026, naming Jan Mustafa's family among the campaigners for compulsory attendance at sentencing.