Husband found guilty over the fatal stabbing of special constable

The husband of Nisha Patel-Nasri – the special police constable who was murdered outside her north London home in May 2006 – was yesterday found guilty of organising her death so he could pay off debts and continue his affair with a Lithuanian prostitute.

Fadi Nasri, 34, had his wife stabbed at their home in Wembley while he was out playing snooker. He had wanted her dead in order to claim her life insurance policy of £350,000 and pay off debts of more than £100,000. He intended to use the rest of the money to fund a luxurious lifestyle and his affair with Laura Mockiene, a Lithuanian prostitute he had been seeing behind his wife's back.

After his wife's death, Nasri, who ran a limousine business, went on television to appeal for the public to help the police in tracing his wife's killers. But the jury at the Old Bailey heard that he had known who had killed her all along and had even provided them with the weapon. Yesterday, they convicted him of murder.

After the verdict, Detective Chief Inspector Nick Scola, who led the investigation, described Nasri's actions as "the final betrayal" of a wife by her husband.

Nisha Patel-Nasri, 29, bled to death outside her home two years ago after being stabbed in the groin. It was initially thought she had been attacked after going outside to investigate a disturbance. During the trial, it emerged that she had been chased from inside her home by her eventual killer, Jason Jones, 36, who had been given keys to get into her house.

The keys were given to Jones by Rodger Leslie, 38, the man Fadi Nasri had hired to have Nisha killed. On the night in question, 11 May 2006, Nasri had arranged for his wife to be in the house alone while he went out to play snooker, ensuring he had an alibi.

Jones, of Manor Park, east London, let himself into the house through the back door and chased Nisha outside, where neighbours heard her scream: "He's following me." Seconds later, Jones stabbed the special constable and hairdresser through the upper thigh with her own kitchen knife and then calmly walked away, leaving her to bleed to death.

Nasri returned from the snooker club to find his wife lying on their driveway and had to be held back by a neighbour who told him: "There's nothing you can do." He kept up his grieving husband act, later appearing on television to appeal for help in tracing the killers.

He then sold the home he had shared with his wife, and used the money to take his mistress on holidays to Lithuania, northern Spain, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. But police soon discovered their affair, and CCTV footage and mobile-phone records linked Nasri to Rodger Leslie.

Yesterday, following 26 hours of deliberations, the jury found Nasri, Jones and Leslie, of Barnet, north London, guilty of murder by a majority verdict of 10-2. A fourth defendant, Tony Emmanuel, was cleared.

Outside the court, the dead woman's brother, Katen Patel, described her murder as "barbaric, vicious, brutal and savage". He added: "It is not a man but a coward who attacks a vulnerable woman with a knife. The fact that the man she loved was responsible makes this all the more surreal."