A THUG with links to East Lancashire has today been convicted of murdering a man who was stripped naked, punched, slapped and kicked.

Mohammed Feazan Ayaz, 20, of Duckworth Grove, Manningham, Bradford, was brutally attacked at Denholme Business Centre in the city on June 30 and July 1 last year.

Today, Raheel Khan, 27, formerly of Edenfield but now of no fixed address, was convicted of his murder by a jury at Bradford Crown Court, alongside Suleman Khan, 20, of Sandford Road, Bradford Moor; and Robert Wainwright, 26, Mannville Terrace, Bradford.

Khan was arrested last July in Bacup in connection with Mr Ayaz’s death.

The murder trial heard Mr Ayaz’s naked body was found just before 4am on July 1.

His family had last seen him when he left home with friends in a red Vauxhall Corsa the previous evening.

Mr Ayaz was dropped off at the business centre to deliver cannabis, cigarettes and bottles of water to Khan, known as Rally, it was stated.

The court heard that Raheel Khan had been using the business centre as a hideout. He was wanted by the police and spent his time at Unit 2, an essentially empty industrial space, smoking cannabis, dealing drugs and listening to music “away from prying eyes.”

Prosecutor Richard Wright QC said: “During the evening of the 30th June, into the early hours of the 1st July, it served another purpose. It became a cell for Mohammed Feazan Ayaz in which, over the course of several hours, he was systematically and sadistically beaten to death on the concrete floor of that room.

“He was stripped naked by his captors, he was tortured and humiliated, and he was beaten for the entertainment of those who were present.

“So proud were they of what they were doing to him that, on several occasions, they used their mobile telephones to film him in his torment, capturing even a moment in which he begged them to just let him die.”

Among his “myriad of injuries” Mr Ayaz suffered a massive head injury caused by a sustained beating.

Khan told the murder trial quite a few of his acquaintances were selling drugs and he became involved, building up an enterprise trafficking in Lancashire.

He had made £14,000 gross a week and been left with £1,500, he said.

Khan, who had admitted the manslaughter of Mr Ayaz but had denied his murder, and his co-defendants will be sentenced tomorrow.