Two brutal robbers are facing life behind bars for murdering a University of Bradford student and viciously wounding his sister and her boyfriend.

The jury at Bradford Crown Court yesterday returned guilty verdicts in what the judge described as “a gruelling and terrible case”.

Reaben Kareem and Jwanru Osman were convicted of murdering Tony Ho at his student accommodation in Grantham Road, Great Horton, Bradford, on January 22 last year.

The jury also convicted Osman of wounding Mr Ho’s sister, Sally, and Gavin Stolarczyk with intent to cause them grievous bodily harm and conspiracy to rob.

Kareem had already pleaded guilty to those charges.

The two 21-year-olds, behind bars since they separately handed themselves into police shortly after their crimes, were due to be sentenced today by the Recorder of Bradford, Judge James Stewart QC.

Kareem, of Coal Pool, Walsall, West Midlands, sat in the secure dock with his head in his hands after the verdicts. Osman, of Northolt, Middlesex, stared straight ahead.

Both were convicted following a retrial. The original trial last summer had to be abandoned when Judge Stewart was taken ill.

The judge told the court yesterday afternoon: “I now have to consider the implications of sentence for these very grave offences.”

During the trial, Miss Ho, a pharmacy student, and Mr Stolarczyk, who was studying law, gave harrowing accounts of how Kareem and Osman tricked their way into their home in daylight armed with a knife and a wheel brace.

Miss Ho was lured into the cellar sitting room where Kareem smashed a bottle on her head. Osman covered her mouth to stifle her screams and both men bundled her into a dark boiler room where she was bound and gagged.

Kareem knifed Mr Stolarczyk in the side and he too was overpowered, bound with electrical cable and gagged with tape.

Mr Ho, 19, a chemistry and forensic science student, was stabbed in the hallway, forced into Miss Ho’s bedroom and tortured to reveal his bank account details.

His sister found his body on her blood-soaked bed after the robbers fled six hours later, carrying their spoils in suitcases.

Mr Ho had been stabbed 13 times and his throat cut. A wire was wrapped round his neck.

  • Read the full story in Friday's T&A