The cousin of a murdered mother-of-three who was found in a sex offender’s freezer now helps other families who have lost loved ones to deal with their grief.
Mihrican ‘Jan’ Mustafa, 38, was strangled by Zahid Younis, who then locked her body in a freezer unit alongside Henriett Szucs, 34, who was murdered in 2016.
The pair had been not been seen for months before their remains were found in April 2019 at the deserted home in Canning Town.
The loss of Jan devastated her family, but her cousin, Ayse Hussein, has since used her experience of the ensuing grief to help others who are going through a similar ordeal.
She now works alongside the likes of the mother of Olivia Pratt-Korbel – a nine-year-old girl who was killed by a gunman in Liverpool in 2022 – and Farah Naz, the aunt of Zara Aleena, who was sexually assaulted and murdered as she was walking home in London in the same year.
Mihrican ‘Jan’ Mustafa, 38, pictured before her tragic death
Relatives of Jan speaking outside of court. Pictured left to right are Ayse Hussein, niece Zeyhal Ozulku, sister Mel Mustafa, Jade, and Kazim Salih
Zahid Younis (pictured) was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of murdering Henriett Szucs, 34, and Mihrican ‘Jan’ Mustafa
Ms Hussein runs annual events, where the families and friends of murder victims gather to support one another and also acts as an Independent Domestic Violence Advocate.
The ex-finance worker told The Mirror she is ‘immensely proud’ of what she has achieved.
She founded The Table of Love and Loss, where those who have lost loved ones to violence in London come together. At the event, friends and family members set up a table in memory of the victims.
They place photos, personal items and other mementos to help remember who they have lost.
Ms Hussein told The Mirror: ‘A father who’d lost his daughter, he said he never came to these things, and on his walk up it was really daunting, because it was so big it was quite scary he found. But by the end he said it was something he really needed, and he got so much comfort and love out of it.’
She said she set up the event after she lost her cousin and began attending vigils.
When she set up something to honour Jan, she wanted other families to be a part of it, and when someone told her they understood what she was going through, ‘they really actually did’.
Ms Hussein previously said the family felt let down by the Met Police, criticising the way the force handled the investigation after Jan was reported missing in 2018.
Police visited Younis’ home five weeks after Ms Mustafa had disappeared because his name came up on her phone records.
Mihrican, also known as Jan or Mary-Jane, was reported missing in May 2018
The officers, however, merely put a leaflet through the his door despite being aware of his disturbing history of abusing women which saw him jailed for getting a child bride pregnant when she was 14.
It was only after concerns were flagged of Younis’ whereabouts when officers searched the flat and discovered the two bodies in the freezer.
It emerged in the murder trial in 2019 that Younis preyed on women who were vulnerable and easy to manipulate.
Relatives said the mother-of-three was caught up in drugs after she became unable to continue receiving housing benefits and ended up losing her home.
Ms Hussein said she believes her cousin might have lived if officers had taken the case more seriously and that the force dismissed her disappearance due to her chaotic lifestyle.
The family, who were not permitted to hold a press appeal, even took matters in their own hands and made their own missing person posters.
Forensics officers leave the flat in Canning Town, East London, in April 2019
Evidence markers laid across Younis’s bedroom floor after police searched the flat in 2019
The body of Henriett Szucs (pictured) was also discovered in the padlocked freezer
When police caught up with Younis, they found the bodies had been frozen for so long that they had become fused together.
Bodycam footage released by Scotland Yard showed police officers searching the flat before they made the grim discovery in April 2019, with one detective heard saying: ‘There’s a freezer here I want to get into but it’s locked.’
Both victims had suffered appalling injuries including multiple broken ribs. Ms Mustafa had suffered a fractured larynx and Ms Szucs’s skull had been fractured.
The judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, said at the sentencing: ‘It will surprise no one in this room that the defendant has declined to attend his sentence, while he sits in the cells below, but I will address these remarks to him so when he has the courage to read them he will understand why the court has reached the conclusion it has.’
She branded Younis an ‘arch-deceiver’, calling him a ‘heartless man and a narcissist’, adding: ‘You have preyed upon the vulnerable with superficial charm.
‘You have been convicted by the strong prosecution case. Not only were the bodies of two women found in your home, hidden in a locked freezer purchased for that purpose, they showed signs of violence which you failed to explain.’
The judge said Younis had ‘robbed’ his victims of ‘all happiness in life and dignity in death,’ and said: ‘You have no remorse.’
Younis had abused girlfriends for many years and left one partner with a broken arm in 2007.
He married a 13-year-old girl in a Walthamstow mosque when he was 20 and admitted unlawful sexual activity with a child the following year in 2005 when she fell pregnant.
Younis also admitted common assault after he put the teenager in a headlock to drag her out of a supermarket.
She was introduced to him when she was 12 and they began a sexual relationship when she was 13.
A year later they were married in an Islamic ceremony at the mosque.
Younis was given 30 months for having sex with her in 2005 and in 2008 he was jailed for breaking the arm of another teenage lover in three places.
He was sentenced to nearly five years in jail after admitting two counts of wounding and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against the 17-year-old.
Younis left her covered in bruises and isolated from her friends while threatening to set her family home on fire if she confided in anyone about the abuse.
Another girlfriend who went on to have his child was locked in an airing cupboard for hours by Younis.
He also imprisoned her in a telephone box when she tried to call her mother and threatened to throw her in front of a train.
The Met Police previously said in a statement that it referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct after Jan’s death.
The IOPC referred the matter back to the Met for the Directorate of Professional Standards to investigate.
But the statement went on to say: ‘The DPS investigation concluded Mihrican’s death could not have been prevented or foreseen. There was no indication that police actions and decisions caused or contributed to her death and no misconduct identified for any officer.’