A deported killer is offering to return to Britain to show his victim’s daughter where he buried her mother’s body 54 years ago.
Nizamodeen Hosein was 22 when he and his older brother Arthur kidnapped Muriel McKay, the wife of a newspaper executive, and held her ransom for £1 million.
The brothers were caught and jailed for life for murder, but Muriel, 55, vanished and her body was never found.
The kidnappers had mistaken Muriel for Anna Murdoch, the then wife of wealthy Australian newspaper magnate Rupert. Muriel’s husband Alick, also Australian, was Murdoch’s deputy.
Image: Muriel McKay was kidnapped in December 1969. Pic: 2006 Getty Images/Sky UK
Now free and living in his native Trinidad, Hosein has formed an extraordinary bond with Muriel’s family in a final attempt to uncover her remains.
He has written to the Home Office asking it to lift a deportation order which still bars him from the UK. His brother Arthur died in prison in 2009.
He wrote: “I admit my involvement in the kidnap and death of Muriel McKay, and I have been attempting to assist her daughter Dianne in locating her body.
“I believe I am the only living person who knows where Muriel’s body is and would like her body to be found before I myself die.”
After years of refusing to explain Muriel’s fate, Hosein now claims Muriel collapsed and died of a heart attack at the remote, rented Hertfordshire farm where the brothers were holding her.
Image: The Hertfordshire farm where Mrs McKay was kept prisoner by the Hosein brothers
Hosein, 75, says he panicked and buried her body under a dung heap behind the farmhouse near the village of Stocking Pelham.
Scotland Yard detectives searched a small section of a field near the house last year, without success, but the family insist they dug in the wrong place.
Image: Arthur and Nizamodeen Hosein. Pic: Sky UK
Hosein says he is certain he will remember exactly where he buried Muriel’s body, even though the buildings, the farmyard and the fields have changed a lot since the kidnap in 1969.
To help him, the McKay family have commissioned computer-generated images to show precisely the changes in the layout of the farm.
Image: Nizamodeen Hosein speaks to Mrs McKay’s daughter, Dianne
I watched as Hosein and Dianne exchanged warm greetings during a recent video call between their homes 4,300 miles apart.
“Hello Nizam, it’s Dianne, how are you?” said Dianne.
“Hello Dianne, all the better for seeing you,” was Nizam’s reply.
Dianne: “It’s very hard for me to talk about this because it’s quite painful, but if you can come and help us find my mother, we’d be grateful.”
Nizam: “I’m quite willing … I’m quite prepared.”
Dianne: “You’re quite prepared to come over and explain and show us exactly where you put her?”
Nizam: “Yeah.”
After their conversation, Dianne told me: “He’s a man of few words.”
I asked her what it was like having to speak to – and rely on his help – the man convicted of her mother’s murder?
She said: “It’s been very hard having so many years of nobody to talk to, no leads and no hope of ever finding her body. It’s actually a relief to talk to him.”
Image: Mrs McKay with her husband, Alick, who was a newspaper executive
Dianne, 82, believes this is probably the family’s last chance to find her mother’s final resting place, but there are still hurdles to overcome.
The Home Office said in a statement: “We express sympathies with Muriel McKay’s loved ones.
“Whilst we do not comment on individual cases, we work with the police on any requests pertaining to ongoing investigations.”
Scotland Yard is in contact with the McKay family and has spoken to Hosein.
Detectives are considering the possibility of applying for a search warrant to excavate at the farm again, but are not yet convinced it is worth it.
Image: Liverpool’s captain Virgil van Dijk. Pic: Reuters
Image: Liverpool’s Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo (right) arrive at the funeral of Diogo Jota and Andre Silva. Pic: PA
Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.
His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.
Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.
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Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.
Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.
Image: Manchester United and Portugal player Bruno Fernandes. Pic: PA
Image: Liverpool’s captain Virgil van Dijk and Liverpool’s player Andrew Robertson. Pic: Reuters
Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.
Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.
‘More than a friend’
In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”
Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”
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Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.
‘With us forever’
Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.
“Their spirit will be with us forever.”
The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.
He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.
“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”
The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.
No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.
Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.
Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.
MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.
Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.
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6:36
Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma
In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.
“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.
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“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.
“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”
Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.
The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.
Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”
In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.
“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”
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“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.
“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”
The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.
Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.
Image: Diogo Jota’s wife Rute Cardoso arrives for the funeral of him and his brother Andre Silva. Pic: Reuters
Image: Liverpool players Virgil van Dijk and Andrew Robertson arrive for the funeral. Pic: Reuters
Image: Van Dijk carried a wreath with Jota’s number 20 while Andrew Robertson’s had a 30 for Andre Silva. Pic: Reuters
Image: Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk. Pic: Reuters
Image: Portugal player Ruben Neves arrives at the funeral. Pic: PA
Image: Liverpool’s Joe Gomez and manager Arne Slot arrive at the funeral of Diogo Jota and Andre Silva. Pic; PA
Image: Liverpool’s Ryan Gravenberch and Cody Gakpo (right) arrive at the funeral of Diogo Jota and Andre Silva
Image: Manchester City and Portugal player Bernardo Silva arrives at the funeral. Pic: AP
Image: The coffins are carried to the church. Pic: PA
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2:27
Miguell Rocha played with Jota for around ten years with Gondomar Sport Clube in Portugal.
Image: People line up to enter the church. Pic: AP
Image: Pallbearers carry the coffins of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva
Image: Pic: Reuters
Image: Pic: AP
Image: People gather outside the Chapel of the Resurrection. Pic: Reuters
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The former captain was seen wiping away tears as he read messages and laid his tribute down.
Image: Fans pay their respects outside Anfield in Liverpool. Pic: Reuters
Image: A board with a picture of Diogo Jota outside Anfield Stadium. Pic: PA
Image: The coffins are carried to the church. Pic: PA