A JURY is expected to retire today in the case of an East Lancashire couple accused of murdering a Pakistani man to escape from the bonds of an arranged marriage.

Yasira Pervez, 24, and Ian Priddle, 46, are accused of stabbing Khurrum Mukhtar to death in a Comfort Inn hotel room in December 2006.

Prosecutors say Pervez and Priddle lured Mr Mukhtar to the hotel room, where he was stabbed in the lungs, stomach, liver and heart.

The couple, from Accrington and Haslingden respectively, were arrested when they flew back to Manchester Airport the following day and have been on trial at Manchester Crown Court, accused of Mr Mukhtar’s murder, for more than a week.

Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, making a closing address to the jury, said: “They lured him (Mr Mukhtar), they ensured that he was alone, they armed themselves with a knife, which they had acquired in Pakistan for the purpose, then they killed him.”

Lawyers for Pervez, who declined to give evidence during the trial, say she admits to being in Mr Mukhtar’s hotel room but denies plotting to kill her husband.

Richard Marks QC, representing Priddle, says the decision by Pervez not to give evidence had left him unable to ask her vital questions about the murder.

These included why, if Priddle had attacked her husband, she did not try to help him, or alert the authorities about the murder, choosing to remain with him until they flew back to England.

Pervez, of Pendle Street, Accrington, and Priddle, of Jubilee Road, Haslingden, deny murder.

(Proceeding).