HITMAN killer Manzoor Qadar has been sentenced to life imprisonment in New York for the roadside shooting of his cousins six years ago.

The father-of-six, of Holland Street, Blackburn, will now consult with legal representatives in a bid to serve his jail term in the UK.

Qadar was found guilty of murder for hire, conspiring to murder for hire and using a firearm for murder for hire at the Federal Court in Brooklyn last April. An attempt to get a retrial failed last month after a judge ruled there was not enough new evidence, and he was sentenced by a Brooklyn judge yesterday.

Samantha Schreiber, US assistant attorney, said: "A life sentence was mandatory. The court sat a 4.30pm and was brief. He was given the sentence we expected."

The 42-year-old has always protested his innocence, saying he was caught up in a vicious wrangle over an arranged marriage. The trial was adjourned five times in 14 months as solicitors hunted new evidence.

During his original trial the court heard he was offered £41,500 to shoot three people including his niece after the row over an arranged marriage.

The court was told that in November 1996, he flew to New York from Blackburn and shot dead Shaukat Parvez, 33, in the chest, leaving him to die on a pavement .

Mr Parvez married Qadar's pregnant niece, Rubina Malik, against her father's wishes after he had arranged for her to marry another man.

Blackburn MP Jack Straw said last April he would look into Qadar's plea to serve his jail term in the UK.

Qadar, a former nurse at Queen's Park Hospital, Blackburn, was extradited to the US in 2001, and had been held at an FBI-run detention centre in Brooklyn ever since.

His family, including wife Fehmeeda, brother Khalid and six children, aged 17, 14, 13, 12, seven and five, has faced an anxious wait.