Women found dead in freezer 'subjected to very significant violence', court told

Two women who were found dead in a freezer were subjected to “very significant violence”, a court has been told.

Police found the remains of Hungarian national Henriett Szucs and mother-of-three Mihrican Mustafa in a flat in Canning Town, east London, in April 2019.

They were looking for Zahid Younis, and ended up having to crowbar open a lockable freezer when they discovered the bodies.

Prosecutor Duncan Penny QC told Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday that Younis was the occupier and tenant of the one-bedroom ground-floor flat.

He told the trial jury that Younis murdered both women and “sought to conceal their remains in the freezer bought for that sole purpose, most probably a short time after the death of the first of the women, Henriett”.

Younis, 35, of Canning Town, denies two counts of murder.

Penny said when police arrived they found the lockable freezer with items stacked on top and flies around it.

He said: “In due course, with a crowbar, that police officer forced open the lid of the freezer and he, that Saturday morning, made a very grim discovery indeed.

“Contained within that small chest freezer were the remains of two women, one of them called Henriett Szucs and the other Mihrican Mustafa.”

He continued: “Prior to their death each of them had been the victim of significant injury, each of them appeared to have been been subject to very significant violence.”

The women, both in their 30s at the time of their disappearances, had suffered numerous rib fractures.

Penny said Szucs had sustained “dreadful” head injuries, still dressed in her pyjamas, and Mustafa’s sternum and larynx had been fractured.

The two, who he described as “vulnerable women living somewhat chaotic lives”, were known to be associated with Younis and their belongings were found at the flat.

They went through periods of homelessness and drug addiction, and diary entries from Szucs suggested Younis was “violent and controlling” to her, Penny said.

There had been times that electricity to the flat was cut off which led the bodies to decompose and left a “foul smell” in the flat, the court was told.

By the time police found them, Szucs had been missing for nearly three years and Mustafa had disappeared for just under a year, a jury was told.

Jurors heard Younis seemed to have abandoned the property but was arrested days after the bodies were found.

Penny said Younis refused to comment in a police interview but after being arrested told officers: “It’s my house, it’s my problem, no one else is involved.”

The trial continues.