A HEARTBROKEN wife has made a tearful plea for her husband to be brought back home after he was found guilty of a brutal street shooting in New York.

Fehmeeda Qadar, 39, of Holland Street, Blackburn, insists he is innocent and got caught up in a web of "powerful enemies."

Manzoor Qadar, 41, father to her six children, was found guilty of conspiring in a drive-by shooting in Brooklyn on November 22, 1996 and using a firearm.

In the incident, which was preceded by a bitter saga over an arranged marriage, Manzoor's cousin, Shaukat Parvez, 33, was killed by a single bullet wound to the chest.

Fehmeeda said: "Never in my worst nightmare did I ever believe something this terrible would happen to us. We feel helpless to do anything.

"Every day the children ask me 'when is daddy going to come and pick us up from Mosque school?', and I do not know what to say."

Manzoor is due to be sentenced in the US on September 18 and faces life imprisonment following a trial in April.

According to papers submitted to the court from the US Probation Department, a vicious tale of conspiracy and "wrath" preceded the killing.

Shaukat Parvez secretly married Rubina Malik in 1994 in Pakistan. But she had been betrothed by her father Malik Rahmat to her first cousin in Pakistan.

She protested but her father "threatened her with a gun". The couple secretly fled to America.

Rahmat then began conspiring with his son, Omar Malik, to have the couple killed and offered him £41,000, the trial was told. Malik summoned his cousin Manzoor from England to help him find Parzez, the court was told.

Police are still hunting Rahmat and Malik but Fehmeeda insists her husband and Shaukat were friends since birth, as they were both born in the same village, and he would never hurt him. "My husband was trying to help them and had gone over to America to try and sort out their problems. My husband is innocent. He is a religious, good man, a trusted father and husband who is not capable of shooting someone.

"Our marriage was not arranged and I don't believe he would kill over that, ever."

Fehmeeda and Manzoor were married in 1984, having moved to England in 1983. They have six children aged 17, 14, 13, 12, 7 and 5. He worked as a nurse at Queen's Park Hospital in Blackburn for three years.

Fehmeeda is now waiting for her husband's sentence before working with her solicitor and the British Embassy in an attempt to bring Manzoor home to Britain.

Blackburn MP, Jack Straw, pledged his help to the couple and confirmed Manzoor could apply for a transfer to a British prison. But not all requests are successful.