Jail for headless corpse murder

Mohamed Boudjenane carried his victim's severed head on a bus

A man has been jailed for life for murdering his neighbour whose headless corpse was found in north London.

Mohamed Boudjenane, 46, of Kingsgate Road, Kilburn, north London, attacked fellow Algerian Lakhdar Ouyahia, 43, in February, the Old Bailey heard.

He killed Mr Ouyahia suspecting him of having an affair with a woman Boudjenane had abducted and imprisoned.

He was found guilty of Mr Ouyahia's murder and falsely imprisoning and raping the woman he had met at a party.

Boudjenane was ordered to serve a minimum term of 22 years.

He was jailed for a concurrent 15 years in total for rape and false imprisonment.

Sentencing him Judge Christopher Moss said: "You are a very dangerous individual.

"It will be for others to determine whether it will ever be safe for you to be released."

Shaved head

During the trial the court heard he had met the married mother-of-four from Oxford at a party and had become obsessed with her.

When she rejected his advances he abducted her off the street and took her to his flat.

Lakhdar Ouyahia's head was found in Regent's Canal

Over the next 11 hours he tied her up with shoe-laces, raped her and beat her black and blue and even shaved her head.

Her ordeal ended and she was freed when she talked him out of killing her and agreed to marry him, the court heard.

Hours after freeing the woman Boudjenane killed his upstairs neighbour, accusing him of having an affair with his captive, William Boyce, QC, prosecuting, said.

He hit Mr Ouyahia, who was a meter reader, over the head with an object believed to be a claw hammer.

It severed his head and Boudjenane tried to saw off his victim's limbs.

Boudjenane then carried his head in an orange plastic bag on a bus and dumped it in the Regent's Canal at Maida Vale, the court heard.

Mr Ouyahia's body was found wrapped in bedding in a supermarket storage case by a member of the public searching for things to recycle at the back of the Somerfield supermarket in Kilburn.