Here is a summary of the sentencing remarks of Mr Justice Lavender who jailed Ricardo Linton for life with a minimum term of 31 years and 312 days this morning.

“Ricardo Linton, the jury have found you guilty of the murder of Mohammed Basharat and the attempted murder of Jamshaid Khan on October 20, 2001.

The killing of Mr Basharat was, as your own counsel accepted, a targeted execution. He and Mr Khan were taxi drivers and were in the office of Little Horton Taxis on Park Lane in Bradford when a gunman with his face covered entered the office and, without saying a word, took aim at Mr Basharat and fired four bullets, two of which hit Mr Basharat in the head and killed him.

The gunman then took aim at Mr Khan and pulled the trigger several more times. Fortunately for Mr Khan, the cylinder of the gun, an air cartridge pistol which had been adapted to fire bullets, had burst and no more bullets could be fired. The gunman quick-ly left the taxi office and disappeared into the night.

Mr Basharat was a 33-year-old father of four children. You ended his life and you brought lifelong misery to his family. His eldest son was only 13 when you killed his father. He has made a moving statement in which he has set out how the pain will stay with them forever.

Mr Khan gave evidence at trial. No one who saw him give evidence can fail to have been moved by his account of the night you tried to kill him.

For the murder of Mr Basharat, I have to impose a sentence of life imprisonment. How-ever, I also have to decide whether to make a whole life order, which would mean that you would never be released from prison, or to fix a minimum term which you will serve before you are eligible to be considered for release by the Parole Board.

It is important that you, and everyone concerned with this case, should understand what a minimum term means. A minimum term is not a fixed term after which you would automatically be released. It is the minimum time which you would spend in custody before your case could be considered by the Parole Board. It would then be for the Pa-role Board to say whether or not you would be released. If they did not, you would re-main in custody.

Moreover, if and when you were released, you would still be subject to licence. This would remain the case for the rest of your life. If for any reason your licence were to be revoked, you would be recalled to prison to continue to serve your life sentence in custody.

I need first to consider the role which you played in this execution.”

(There is now mention of hearsay evidence and witnesses in the trial) Mr Justice Lavender then continues: “I am sure that you were the man who had a fight with Mr Basharat in Park Lane the previous evening, after the wing mirrors of your cars had clipped one another. I am sure that Mr Basharat got the better of you in that fight, that you were outnumbered as other taxi drivers arrived at the scene and that you ran off, shouting: “You don’t know who you are messing with. I will come back and get you.”

That threat to get Mr Basharat was carried out. That is why he was killed, because of a fight over a damaged wing mirror.

I am sure that you were the gunman. Your threat was that you would come back and get Mr Basharat. Mr Khan thought that the gunman was the man he had seen the night be-fore in Park Lane…And you had killed someone before in the very same way.

That was on January 13 1993, when you murdered Jose Rosa. You were tried for and convicted of that offence in October 2005. You continue to deny your guilt, but I am sure that you were guilty.

The evidence at your trial in New York was that Mr Rosa was shot as he sat with three other young men in a stationary vehicle on a street in Brooklyn by a gunman who, without saying a word, approached the vehicle, produced a pistol, fired shots at Mr Rosa, who was shot three times, fired at one of the others, aiming at his head, approached Mr Rosa as he lay on the ground, fired a final, fatal shot into his head and walked away. That was another execution by you, eight years before you executed Mr Basharat.

I consider that the seriousness of your offending was exceptionally high, because you murdered one man and tried to murder another and you had previously murdered Jose Rosa. The current law is that the starting point in such a case in a whole life order.

As for the attempted murder of Mr Khan, this was a case of very high culpability be-cause you used a gun. Fortunately, you did not cause serious harm. The guidelines say that the starting point for your offence of attempted murder is 25 years’ imprisonment and that the range is up to 30 years.

Apart from the nature of the killing itself, the other aggravating factors, some of which are more significant than others, and in respect of which I accept the need to avoid double-counting, are as follows: You were convicted in New York of the offence of possession of a handgun, committed on December 23 1991.

Since 1993, you had been taking steps took to avoid detection by the authorities in New York, since you knew that you were wanted on suspicion of murdering Jose Rosa.

You were only in this country because you had entered it unlawfully under a false name.

What you had been doing here in Bradford since May 2001 was dealing in crack co-caine.

There was a significant degree of planning. You had to source the gun and then you had to keep watch on the taxi office until you saw Mr Basharat go in.

You then left the country in order to escape detection.

There are no mitigating factors.

I have to impose a total sentence which reflects all of your offending behaviour and which is no more than is just and proportionate. I will impose concurrent sentences for the offences of murder and attempted murder. I have taken account of the attempted murder in assessing the seriousness of the offence of murder.

There are two other factors which I need to bear in mind. The first is that you are cur-rently serving a sentence of imprisonment for the murder of Jose Rosa and you have been in one prison or another since you were arrested in Jamaica on August 5 2003, 18 years and 53 days ago. You were convicted of Jose Rosa’s murder on October 19 2005. You were sentenced for that murder on November 17 2005. You were sentenced to be imprisoned for 25 years to life.

The practical effect of that sentence is that the earliest date on which you could be re-leased from prison pursuant to that sentence is in May 2029. I do not know when, if at all, you will in fact be released from prison pursuant to that sentence, as that remains to be determined. If you are released from prison pursuant to that sentence, you will con-tinue to serve the sentence which I am about to impose.”

(Mr Justice Lavender then assesses the age at which Linton committed his crimes and looks at the law governing sentencing) “Ricardo Linton, for the murder of Mohammed Basharat I impose on you a sentence of life imprisonment. I fix the minimum term which you will serve in custody at 31 years and 312 days. This means that you will not be eligible to be considered for release from prison until you have spent a total of 50 years in prison following your arrest on August 5 2003. By then, you will be 77 years old.

This is a more lenient sentence than you would have received if you had committed these offences at any time in the last 17 years. Had you done that, the effect of my sentence would have been that you could never be released from prison.

I also impose on you a concurrent sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment for the attempted murder of Jamshaid Basharat. Since it is concurrent, this will not affect the total length of your sentence.