Brothers jailed for 30 years after killing Sameena ImamTwo brothers who murdered a marketing manager on Christmas Eve using chloroform have both been jailed for at least 30 years.
Cash-and-carry boss Roger Cooper and ex-Army reservist David Cooper, aged 41 and 39, were convicted on Tuesday of killing Sameena Imam, whose body was buried on an allotment.
Jailing the killers for life at Birmingham Crown Court, Judge Patrick Thomas QC told the siblings: “The use of a poison in a case such as this demonstrates a cold-blooded intention to kill, regardless of the consequences.
“You worked together, hand in glove, in planning and carrying out the murder of a joyful and bubbly young woman, brutally betrayed by a man she loved and his brother.”
Ordering both brothers to serve at least 30 years before they can even be considered for parole, Judge Thomas said: "Poisoning cases are, demonstrably, very rare.
"Historically allegations of murder by poison were treated with such seriousness that they were almost invariably prosecuted by the attorney general in person."
The judge, who was told that a plot to kill Miss Imam was under way in early December, said of the offence: "It was a long-planned deliberate murder of a young woman whose misfortune it was to have fallen in love with you, Roger Cooper.
"You killed a bright, selfless, ambitious, hard-working and life-loving woman - a daughter, a sister and an aunt - because that fact was inconvenient to you.
"You, Roger Cooper, took her to Leicester, to your brother's house.
"Exactly what happened there you know, and no one else does. But I am satisfied that hardly had she entered the house that you two tall, strong men held her helpless while one of you administered chloroform, probably in a cloth to her face."
