A father and stepmother were sentenced to life in prison for torturing and killing their 10-year-old daughter in England.
Urfan Sharif, 42, got a minimum term of 40 years and his wife, Beinash Batool, will serve a minimum of 33 years, the BBC reported.
Sharif and Batool, 30, were convicted last week in the killing of Sara Sharif, who was found dead at her home in Surrey on Aug. 10, 2023.
Investigators tallied more than 70 fresh injuries on Sara’s body and said there were numerous, uncountable other ones. Urfan Sharif confessed to the killing in a letter next to Sara’s body.
Urfan’s brother, Faisal Malik, was also convicted of allowing the abuse and death of Sara and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Sharif, Batool and Malik fled to Pakistan on the day after they killed Sara. However, they returned to England shortly afterward and turned themselves in.
“Sara’s death was the culmination of years of neglect, frequent assaults and what can only be described as the torture of this small child,” Justice John Cavanagh said Tuesday at sentencing. “The degree of cruelty is almost inconceivable. … None of you have shown a shred of true remorse.”
The case captivated Britain, with the BBC running a live blog of Tuesday’s sentencing while officials clamored for measures to prevent a similar murder from happening again.
With News Wire Services
