A community leader has urged anyone in Bradford who has information about a possible accomplice to the killer parents of teenager Shafilea Ahmed to come forward.

Police are said to be looking into the possibility that Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and Farzana Ahmed, 49, who last week were jailed for life for the murder of their Bradford-born daughter, had help when they dumped her body in 2003.

Mohammed Saleem Khan, chief executive of Bradford Council for Mosques, said his group would help police if required to do so to encourage witnesses to come forward.

He said: “We hope if there is any other accomplice then we hope it would be dealt with appropriately.

“I hope that if there is anybody who knows anything about this then they will come forward.

“If the police need our help then we are more than happy to put the word out, to put a request to the community that if there’s anybody who has heard or knows anything about it, please come forward – it’s important that justice takes place.”

It was reported that an unidentified human hair was found on Shafilea’s foot. Tests showed it did not come from members of her immediate family.

It has also been reported that a white van was seen parked at Sedgwick, in the Lake District, where the 17-year-old’s body was dumped after she was murdered by her parents who believed she had brought dishonour on her family by pursuing a Westernised lifestyle.

Shafilea was suffocated with a plastic bag at her family home in Warrington on September 11, 2003, a jury at Chester Crown Court heard during an 11-week trial. Her decomposed remains were found five months later ext to the River Kent.

Shafilea was born in Bradford and lived with her parents in Girlington before the family moved to Warrington when she was young.

Eight members of her extended family living in Bradford were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the early stages of the investigation, but proceedings against them were later dropped.

A Cheshire Police spokesman said officers were now looking into new information about the case that was revealed during the trial.

The spokesman said: “If anyone believes they may have information that will help detectives in this instance they can contact Cheshire Police on 101.”