LONDON: A would-be hitman was jailed for life in Britain after being convicted of plotting to kill a prominent exiled Pakistani blogger, prosecutors said this week.
Muhammed Gohir Khan, 31, was told he would serve at least 13 years in jail for conspiring to murder Ahmad Waqass Goraya last year, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Supermarket worker Khan, who denied the charge, was found guilty by a jury at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court in southwest London in January.
Goraya, an outspoken blogger and liberal activist who lived in the Netherlands, has accused Pakistan of being behind the plot to kill him.
The trial was told Khan was recruited by middlemen apparently based in Pakistan, and that Goraya believed death threats he had received were led and orchestrated by a Pakistani intelligence service. The agency has not commented on the case.
Muhammed Gohir Khan, the 31-year-old British Pakistani man convicted of conspiring to murder exiled Pakistani blogger Ahmad Waqass Goraya. (Photo courtesy: Metropolitan Police)
Prosecutors said he appeared to have been targeted because he spoke out against the Pakistani government and military in satirical social media posts. Both deny they target bloggers or the media.
Goraya has previously reported violent attacks and threats made against him.
In 2017 he was held in captivity for weeks in Pakistan along with four other activists and tortured.
The Pakistani military denied any involvement.
Khan, from east London, traveled to the Netherlands and spent days watching Goraya’s home in Rotterdam and bought a professional chef’s knife, the court was told.
He returned the UK after realizing the blogger was away, and was promptly arrested.
British police liaised with the Dutch authorities to build up a dossier of his encrypted communications with middlemen on WhatsApp and Signal and security camera footage of his movements.
He claimed he only agreed to the £100,000 ($130,000, 119,000 euro) fee to kill Goraya because he needed money and never intended to carry it out.
