Shopkeeper who played dumb to ITV News convicted of murders over 'bomb-like' Leicester blast in bid for £300,000 pay-out

A Leicester shopkeeper who played the victim on camera in an interview with ITV News after an explosion at his store has been found guilty of carrying out the "bomb-like" blast that killed five people.

Aram Kurd was convicted along with his accomplices Akran Ali and Hawkar Hassan over a plot to claim a £300,000 insurance pay-out.

The trio used “many, many litres of petrol” in an arson attack on Kurd’s supermarket, causing an explosion which completely destroyed the shop and a flat above the premises on February 25.

The next morning he told ITV News on camera he had no idea what caused the explosion and invented a detailed story of how he was thrown in the air by the blast.

Instead CCTV cameras would show him running safely away from the scene as investigators pinpointed him, Ali and Hassan for the inside job.

Leicester Crown Court heard how some residents living near the Polish supermarket on Hinckley Road, Leicester, thought a bomb had reduced the property to rubble such was the bang and devastation.

A five-week trial was told the defendants left shop worker Viktorija Ijevleva, 22, to die in the building because she was aware of the insurance policy taken out less than three weeks earlier.

Opening the Crown’s case at the start of the trial, prosecutor David Herbert QC told a jury of seven women and five men the defendants intended to maximise the damage to the premises and “would have known” people would have been in the two-storey flat above.

Ali, 38, Hassan, 33, and Kurd, 34, were assisted by a Kurdish interpreter throughout the trial after denying murder and alternative counts of manslaughter.

But they were unanimously found guilty of five counts of murder after 11 hours and 26 minutes of deliberations.

Viktorija Ljevleva was among the victims Credit: Leicestershire Police

The trio were also convicted of conspiring with Ms Ijevleva to make a gain, by dishonestly pursuing an insurance claim in respect of the fire.

Ms Ijevleva, Mary Ragoobeer, 46, her teenage sons Shane and Sean, and 18-year-old Leah Beth Reek, 18, who was Shane’s girlfriend, were all killed in the Sunday blast.

Ms Reek's sister Molly fought back tears as she paid a loving tribute to her sister as a "genuine diamond who shone so brightly" outside court following the convictions.

Around 26 litres of petrol was used to start the fire in the basement of the supermarket, triggering a massive explosion at 7.01pm.

CCTV and traffic camera footage released by police at the end of the trial shows people escaping from a nearby takeaway moments after the explosion, and rubble being blasted into the roadway as cars pass by.

Brothers Sean Rajoobeer, 17 (left) and Shane Rajoobeer, 18, and their mother Mary, three of the five victims of the Hinckley Road explosion in Leicester Credit: Leicestershire Police

Footage recovered by police from a neighbouring business showed Ali in shot three days before the blast – moments before the camera angle was moved.

Further images from the same CCTV unit a day before the fire showed a gloved hand moving the camera angle again – at a time when all three defendants were nearby.

Leah Beth Reek, 18, was also killed Credit: Leicestershire Police

Kurd was also recorded on a security camera as he escaped from the scene at the rear of the shop.

Ali, of Drake Close, Oldham, Hassan, of Eld Road, Coventry, and Kurd, of Hillary Place, Leicester, were remanded in custody and will be sentenced in mid-January.

The aftermath of the deadly explosion on Hinckley Road in Leicester. Credit: PA

During his opening address, Mr Herbert told jurors: “The explosion and the proceeding fire demolished a building and killed five people in the building – one person who was in the shop and four who were in the flat above enjoying a peaceful night in.”

Mr Herbert said: “Even on camera 50 metres away you can see the explosion and the enormity of what happened.

“It was an explosion, the prosecution say, caused by many, many litres of petrol.

“The explosion and the fire that followed was deliberately caused by these defendants who intended to profit from loss of stock, contents and future loss of business from the shop.

“It was not an accident, the prosecution say, that the petrol used caused such devastating damage.”

Describing the unlawful killing of Ms Ijevleva, Mr Herbert added: “The defendants thought she knew too much and decided to leave her to die in the explosion that they created.

“In other words, the devastation that they caused was carried out with the intention to kill.”