Meet, Marry, Murder - Season 1, Episode 12 - Tarin - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[dramatic music] NARRATOR: In Birmingham, England, 20-year-old Raneem Oudeh anxiously calls police.
The husband she has left is stalking her. She has every reason to be frightened.
And she goes, I think my days are up. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: With Renee and her mother, out together,
both call the police. They're desperately avoiding Janbaz Tarin. The day you leave me, the day I kill you.
NARRATOR: Played out on camera, the real life drama of a husband intent on controlling his wife.
CLARE MACKINTOSH: CCTV shows Tarin running from police before jumping onto a car in an attempt
to get away. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: Theirs is an Islamic marriage. Is it about to end in murder?
[dramatic music] [theme music] It had begun with a marriage of two people in their 20s.
The story of Raneem Oudeh and Janbaz Train was to see a manhunt and a late night swoop by police.
It was to involve ancient customs in Afghanistan, dramatic escapes from a war zone,
and all of the strands of a tragedy which came together on the streets of Britain's
second city, Birmingham. MARK PAYNE: I want to thank the public for their response
to this. As a result of the public assistance, we managed to locate Tarin and detain him.
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: Raneem Oudeh's talent gave her hope of one day releasing her music.
She had a great voice, and she wanted to be a singer one day. NARRATOR: She had escaped a war to get to England.
She had old hopes in the world when she came to UK. She thought she's coming somewhere safe
because of the war in Syria. NEIL LANCASTER: Raneem Oudeh came over to the UK from war-torn Syria, fleeing the violence over there.
She was joining her mother, and she was coming with her young son. EMMA KENNY: So taking herself from that situation
and bringing herself to the UK, that would have been, yes, a leap of faith, but without a doubt,
she would have had great hopes for the future. [music playing] NARRATOR: Raneem settled with her family already
living in the affluent leafy suburb of Solihull, 7 miles Southeast of Birmingham in England.
She reunited with her mother, Khaola Saleem, stepfather, Mohammed Saleem, and her siblings.
They had been in the UK for 16 years. NOUR NORRIS: They love UK. They love Britain so much that Khaola lived here for years,
and she always was very proud being in England. And Raneem, when she came, she loved it.
CLARE MACKINTOSH: She was looking to make a fresh start, not only escaping from the war in Syria,
but also from the wreckage of her previous relationship. She was ready for a new chapter in her life.
NARRATOR: Raneem had a son from a relationship in Syria and planned on asking her mother in England, Khaola
to help her care for him. Raneem shows resilience instantly. The minute that she hits the UK, she's
thinking about the future. She enrolls immediately at a local college to learn English.
She puts a child in nursery. It is all about focusing on a new life with new opportunities.
[music playing] NARRATOR: It was around 2014 when Janbaz Tarin fled the war torn region between Pakistan and Afghanistan
to also seek a better life in the UK. EMMA KENNY: Raneem actually makes Tarin when she
enrolls at the local college. And the minute that he sees her, he decides that he
wants a relationship with her. He's very confident, a little bit overconfident really.
NOUR NORRIS: Raneem is a beautiful soul. If you met her, you will see her beauty from her character,
beauty from her personality. Obviously, and she was a very pretty girl, very attractive girl.
NARRATOR: In a bid to win over Raneem, Tarin begins weaving a web of deceit and lies.
When they first met, Tarin lied to Raneem about his age. It would turn out to be the first of many lies.
NARRATOR: The lie about his age is relevant because of his status in England. He claimed to be under 18, so permitted into the country
as a minor fleeing a war zone. In fact, it's thought he was in his early 20s. NEIL LANCASTER: And quite arrogantly, when he sees her,
she's very pretty. He's very attracted to her, and he says you're to be mine. You will be mine.
NARRATOR: Dr. Jane Monckton Smith advises Britain's home office on the patterns of abusive behavior
in domestic relationships which lead to violence. That kind of language is actually
telling us something about the way that he perceives his relationships. He perceives them as practices in possession.
He actually thinks that he owns anybody that he is in a relationship with. NARRATOR: According to those familiar with the social and
religious customs that Janbaz was exhibiting, ownership should not have been part of his outlook.
Tarin's belief of ownership should not come from the Islamic legal tradition, simply because the concept of ownership
does not exist within Islam particularly when talking about marriage. There's no such thing as Islamic ownership.
The idea that you enter a relationship and that you own the other person is just a cultural thing, which involves
men using their power and their control over women and women's behavior. NARRATOR: Raneem, outgoing, approachable,
makes friends easily acknowledge. She's in no particular rush to settle down with Tarin.
She was happy just to study and to look after her son. And she didn't want anything else, really.
And her mom was very happy to help her achieve her goal. I don't think she really wanted a man in her life.
But he forced himself. She found herself trapped in it. And she tried to get out of it by studying
and developing herself. EMMA KENNY: One of the traits that really disturbs me about Tarin is that when you actually look at his behavior
towards Renee at the beginning, he set his sights on her, and then he hassles her, and he really hassle.
He makes it very disturbing for her at college. It's almost stalking behavior. NOUR NORRIS: He had a very strong character.
And he was very, I'm the man here. And everyone, in some ways, thought he was great.
He would spend a lot of money on everybody. He would buy them lunch for her sake and stuff.
And he was very much a man of control. What he wanted to do was to ensure that his male power
remained the uppermost in his mind, and that she would then bow to his manliness in effect.
NOUR NORRIS: But he kept coming back to her. I didn't like that. He kept calling her or wants to see her, and all that.
I didn't really like that at all. And I know Raneem. She is quite soft. So he can persuade her at some point.
NARRATOR: Despite having complained to tutors about his behavior, Raneem relents
and agrees to date around 2016. So Tarin is in a relationship with Raneem. And the type of person that he is,
he's going to want to get a firm commitment from her, something that says to him, I now own you, officially.
EMMA KENNY: It's hard to understand what makes Raneem move from being in a position of resistance,
where she's concerned about Tarin's behavior around her, to a position of submission and giving in to his advances
and ending up in a relationship with him. NARRATOR: Less hard to understand, when investigating what Janbaz Tarin was saying to Raneem.
NOUR NORRIS: We discovered later what he said to her when he met her. This time, you're not going to escape.
You're mine. If you don't marry me, I will finish all your family, not just you.
NARRATOR: She kept that threat from her family who were soon shocked when Tarin convinces Raneem
to move the relationship on. He wants an Islamic marriage. He kind of browbeats her.
He's intense. He keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, which he would do because he can't relax
until he's got that commitment. And this will be eating him up because in his head,
he already thinks he owns her. But he's got to have that official stamp of ownership.
NOUR NORRIS: I think she was trying to be strong and clever by going along with his plan.
And she didn't realize what she was walking into. As a family, we couldn't really, in the beginning, accept him.
JANE MONCKTON SMITH: To men like Tarin, marriage is a practice in possession. Once you have married somebody, you
then are bestowed with rights. [music playing] NARRATOR: Despite the family's misgivings,
Raneem and Tarin are married in an Islamic ceremony in 2016. She is now his wife under Islamic law,
although, the marriage is not legally recognized in the United Kingdom. An Islamic marriage is a contract.
It's no more or less, you have to have two witnesses present. It's not a religious ceremony at all.
It's-- there is a religious person in the room, but it literally takes 30 seconds.
FAEEZA VAID: An Islamic marriage is a marriage between two consenting parties. What is needed for it to be valid
is offer, acceptance, and consideration, and both parties need to have consented to the marriage fully
and have capacity to do so. NARRATOR: And both parties did consent. The day of her wedding, I can't
describe how beautiful she was. I just can't. She's just amazing. She had the most beautiful personality
and smile and eyes and hair. And me and my sisters, when we looked at her, we nearly cried because we knew, or we had a feeling--
I think you have this gut feeling that something's not quite right. She's forcing it.
NARRATOR: Alarmingly, on the wedding day, Tarin told Raneem what being married now meant to her life.
NOUR NORRIS: He sat beside her, and he whispered in her ear. He said to her, you're mine.
Back home, if you marry me, you don't leave me. The day you leave me, the day I kill you.
NARRATOR: Was it an empty threat, or was Raneem's life truly in danger? [dramatic music]
2016 and newly married under Islamic law, Raneem Oudeh is soon shown what it means
to be married to Janbaz Tarin. Almost immediately after marriage his true colors were shown.
He was violent, threatening, possessive. He said to her, if you ever leave me, I'll kill you and your family.
JANE MONCKTON SMITH: In a strange way, he would have needed punish for making him wait.
So very often with that kind of mentality, the punishment and the abuse starts immediately.
NOUR NORRIS: But she kept disappearing and not wanting anyone to come down to her house and all that.
[inaudible] her mum was gradually getting more upset and worried and her days became very disturbed.
This is, I own you now. I own you now. And you better behave yourself because this is going to be
the consequences if you don't. And she probably would have felt incredibly trapped within that.
She had a child to protect. She had herself to protect. She had her family to protect as well because there is not
a doubt in my mind that he would have threatened them, and he would have made her feel that if she attempted to leave,
that her family would have been in danger. NARRATOR: Now living together in their own flat despite daily
abusive and controlling behavior from Tarin, Raneem puts on a brave face for her family.
You're talking about narcissism and potential psychopath. He's somebody that you would not want
to be around because whatever he wants he takes, whether that's legal or otherwise.
Raneem hid from her family what was going on in her marriage, something that's very common with domestic abuse victims who
can often be made to feel that they brought this on themselves. She tried her best to show us that she was fine
and to protect us, to protect her baby and her. She really tried to work this marriage
because she was worried. She didn't want it to end because she knows this if he ends it, it means the end of her life.
NARRATOR: Her daily life was about appearing to be happy doing what she wanted. Now it's important to remember that she has
come from a war torn country. She's seen more than anybody should see. She now finds herself in a violent and abusive
relationship. But despite this, she continues to work at college she continues to care for her son
and be part of her family. We have a woman who's come from Syria. She's a single mother.
She's been divorced. These are all problematic in her community to some degree. And suddenly, she's married again, and it's going wrong.
So he knows that she's probably unlikely to wish to divorce him because she doesn't want people to see that the relationship is
failing. So he's not just powerful over in the context that he physically dominates her, he's powerful over her
because culturally she probably wants the relationship to work. [music playing] NARRATOR: To keep him away from her family,
Tarin starts telling people she's mentally unstable. For five months he was actually
trying to indicate everybody that Raneem is crazy, and she's got mental issues. We knew he was really bad.
But we didn't know how bad it was. CLARE MACKINTOSH: Throughout this difficult time
in her marriage when she must have felt so isolated from her friends and family,
unable to tell them what was going on, she was also persevering with her college course
and looking after her baby son to whom she was utterly devoted. NOUR NORRIS: So here she was, unable to leave him
because he was threatening her that he's going to kill her and kill her baby and kill her family.
If she leaves him, he'll find anywhere in the country if she runs away. NARRATOR: At the start of 2017, Tarin returned
briefly to Afghanistan. While Tarin is in Afghanistan, Raneem discovers that her husband has another wife and family
in his native country. EMMA KENNY: He's got three children and a pregnant wife in another country.
So now we're seeing that he is living a complete lie, a complete fabrication of who he really is.
CLARE MACKINTOSH: Tarin had even spoken openly about this with neighbors, even bragging about the fact
that neither wife knew about the other. He'd been brought up to think that women are lesser beings
and somehow they don't have the rights that he has. And therefore, he would want to enforce his power.
He's telling his friends that he's got two wives. He's joking about it. He doesn't seem to care.
That's just who he is. NARRATOR: Leaving Tarin would have been tough for Raneem.
If you have an Islamic marriage and a woman wants a divorce, she has to go to a Sharia council or a Sharia court, which could be
a group of men around the table, which makes it rather difficult for her to get everything that she wants.
FAEEZA VAID: Raneem's hesitation with leaving her marriage with Tarin would have been the same issues that all women face
when considering leaving an abusive situation, her personal turmoil, you know, where she was going to go, what
she was going to do, she's got a child, how would she be able to, you know, survive outside of that marriage,
would have all been things that she would have considered. So I think it's really important for us
to understand that leaving an abusive situation would be difficult for anyone doing it.
NAZIR AFZAL: You know, you cannot possibly leave a relationship. It's something that's seen as almost,
well, sinful in some respects. And so the idea that she would want to leave a relationship,
people around her clearly were supportive, but she would have probably had this in her mind
that it's something that would perhaps, well, shame her family. And it's something that she felt she shouldn't do.
NARRATOR: With Tarin out of the country and Raneem's family now aware of the abuse
that's been going on, the family persuade Raneem to leave him. Everyone was telling her to do it for a long time,
and to protect her baby and protect us and to protect herself. The type of person that he is, he's
not going to take this well, and he is not going to just go away. She builds up to telling him it's over.
She actually doesn't want to be married to him anymore. He is still constantly trying to control her.
He's making threats to her. He's making threats to her family. He's relentless. He's obsessive.
NARRATOR: Raneem was out of her depth, unable to control a truly dangerous man. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: As soon as Raneem said to him
she wants the relationship to end, the risk has gone sky high. And I think that she knew that as well at some level.
She knew how dangerous he was. He'd shown her. [music playing] NARRATOR: It's 2018, a failed Islamic marriage
has left Raneem Oudeh determined to leave her husband Janbaz Tarin. Back from Afghanistan, visiting his other wife and children,
Tarin repeats his threat to Raneem, a threat she believes is all too real. She said to me, aunty.
I said, yes. She goes, I think my days are up soon. I said, what do you mean? She goes, I think he's going to kill.
NARRATOR: Her aunt, Nour Norris and her mother, Khaola Saleem are watching over Raneem's every move
to protect her. NOUR NORRIS: She had a very strong mother behind her, who supported her all the time.
And she took care of her and her baby. NARRATOR: Tarin did appear ready to take a step away.
But appearances were part of his deception. CLARE MACKINTOSH: Tarin refuses to accept that his relationship
with Raneem is over. A family meeting is held in which Tarin agrees to stay away from her, but he
doesn't honor that commitment. He hassles her and subjects her to constant controlling behavior.
So he's going nowhere. He's absolutely fixated on her, and he's not going to let her go.
This is really indicative of what we see in certain crimes towards women. She's in a fight for her life at this point.
NARRATOR: During this time, Raneem is still living in their flat with her young child.
She is fully aware that ending their marriage is sending Tarin into a downward violent spiral.
The police attended the property on several occasions. Neighbors made reports of screaming and arguments.
NOUR NORRIS: The neighbors had to chase him with a stick because he was hurting her.
NEIL LANCASTER: It was a tumultuous rest of the year, with a litany of abuse, threats, assaults.
He even tried to break into her mother's house. Police were called and did intervene
on a number of occasions. However, she often declined to substantiate those allegations.
JANE MONCKTON SMITH: She tells the police that she feels in danger. But the same with a lot of victims,
she doesn't necessarily want to go the extra step of saying, right, I'm dragging you in front of the courts,
I am making a complaint against you because that might raise the risk even higher.
NOUR NORRIS: Every person who has been abused out there, they always call for help, not on the phone,
but they call for help even through anything they do in their life. Any clue they give you, they are calling for help,
and they don't know what they want. NARRATOR: By early summer 2018 matters were coming to a head.
Raneem still lived in the flat that she had shared with Janbaz Tarin in Solihull, Birmingham.
In theory, he had moved out. In practice, he was seldom away from her front door.
And matters were about to become more complicated. She's terrified. She's telling friends that she feels
her life is going to end soon. CLARE MACKINTOSH: By this point, Raneem had been completely honest with her family
about the reign of terror that she'd been subjected to. And so she had her family's full support.
Her mother said, come on, we're going to do this properly. We're going to get a court order.
They went to court and applied for a non molestation order. NARRATOR: The mere act of Khaola helping her daughter out
as any mother would do has put her firmly in the sights of Janbaz. EMMA KENNY: So he starts to stalk her, follow her.
He even breaks in to her mother's home. But her and Raneem, Khaola and Raneem, their relationship
was beyond mother and daughter. [music playing] [dramatic music] NARRATOR: In August 2018, after another series
of violent arguments involving police intervention, Raneem finally moves out of the flat
that she had shared with Janbaz Tarin and in with her mother. Tarin continues to harass.
He warns Raneem she's breaking the sacred vows of her religion. Even though she's living with her mother
so it gives him less opportunity to be aggressive towards, at every opportunity he has,
he uses that kind of control. Now this is really worrying. Because if you have ended a relationship with somebody
and they continue that stalking behavior, it's because they're going somewhere with it.
They're not leaving it behind. And it's not because they think they're necessarily
going to get you back, is that they're building to a crescendo, usually of violence.
What we're finding is that ultimately domestic abuse is about power and control.
So the perpetrator will use whatever they can to justify the abuse that they are
inflicting on the other person. So in Tarin's case, he chose to use religion in order to justify his wrongful actions.
On the 10th of August, Tarin confronted Raneem and smashed up her mobile phone. NEIL LANCASTER: She's terrified.
She's telling friends that she feels her life is going to end soon. It comes to a point where her mother assists
to get a non molestation order, preventing him interfering with her. The problem is in this situation the power is all
with Tarin because he is the one who knows what he's going to do. He is the one who's inside his head.
They have only got the law on their side. So they use what weapons they have to keep themselves safe.
They want a court order. They want something that they hope will keep him away. It's all they've got, really.
What else have they got? Raneem got the court order, and she told the solicitor everything that happened to her, A to Z. At that point,
she wasn't scared at all. She had this strength that was in her to say, and she did it.
CLARE MACKINTOSH: The non molestation order prevented Tarin from coming within 100 meters of his wife.
This gave Raneem a much greater sense of security. She finally felt as though she was safe.
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: The August 16, 2018 court order issued against Tarin meant that Raneem
felt some degree of comfort and safety, optimism for her future. NOUR NORRIS: She was free.
She was free, and you can see that from her eyes and her beauty. I was really happy and excited for her.
And she was telling me, I'm looking for a job, and this is what I'm going to do next year.
I had my certificate. And I had really good results. And I'm moving on. I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do that. She was on and on, going about it. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: The safety of the court order was short lived.
Tarin was at breaking point and losing control. EMMA KENNY: I imagine that Tarin will have been absolutely
infuriated and enraged that she has dared to seek a non molestation order. NAZIR AFZAL: The thing about honor
is that it escalates very quickly. So if somebody goes and seeks help from the authorities,
or he goes to the police, goes to the court to get a non molestation order as she did, actually, he
sees that as even more shame. He sees that as something that actually denies him the ability
to do what he wants to do. And if anything, it aggravates the situation, and clearly in his mind, that's exactly what happened.
NOUR NORRIS: When she had the court order, he had had in his mind, that's it, she's going.
He stepped up his harassment of Raneem, stalking her wherever she went and even sleeping outside her mother's home for 12 consecutive nights.
She must have felt terrified. EMMA KENNY: It's hard to imagine the nature of a human being who
chooses to spend 12 nights sleeping outside his ex-wife-to-be's mother's house because she's in there.
To publicly display that level of stalking just demonstrates that he doesn't care about rules.
Now, that's a really important point to note. This is a man who could not care less about the rules
around him. And that's what's so dangerous about an individual like Tarin. He simply doesn't follow any rules, which
makes him really dangerous. NARRATOR: Tarin had become a predator, one about to move in for the kill.
CLARE MACKINTOSH: On the 26th of August, Raneem spent the day with her mother. They visited family.
They had a nice day, but unbeknownst to them, Tarin was stalking their every move in a white van
he'd borrowed from work. NARRATOR: That evening, Raneem and her mother go to a nearby shisha lounge.
Tarin follows them. EMMA KENNY: Remember, at this point, they have a non molestation order against Tarin.
That means that they believe that he's not going to be coming anywhere near them.
NARRATOR: He breaches the molestation order of just 10 days and goes into the bar.
[dramatic music] EMMA KENNY: Imagine the terror. In that moment, not only do they know that he's there,
and he's a threat, they know that nothing they have done has stopped him, not even the police.
CLARE MACKINTOSH: And after watching them for a while, he confronts them, and an argument breaks out.
[dramatic music] At that point, he lost his patience, especially seeing her having her free life back
and just looking beautiful and walking to her happy. He started to abuse her. He decides that he's going to be very publicly attacked them.
EMMA KENNY: He tries to take the phone off Raneem. So we imagine at this point that he's
got some ideas that maybe she's betraying him in his mind. You know, he wants to check on her.
JANE MONCKTON SMITH: He actually assaults Khaola and Raneem, publicly. He threatens to kill Raneem in front of people.
This is a man who feels completely justified because he legally owns this woman, which gives
him rights, which means that he is justified in what he's doing. The idea that religion was the reason
why he felt the need to be able to control her is just nonsense. It's a total utter red herring.
JANE MONCKTON SMITH: So he's not particularly worried about people hearing him give these threats
and actually hitting them. But it's more than possible that he had actually already decided that this is
the day he's going to kill her. NARRATOR: After Tarin assaults both women and threatens to kill them, he's thrown out of the shisha lounge
by staff. And at 10:30 PM, Raneem calls the police. Much of what followed is captured by security cameras.
Now, Raneem and her mother know that they really are in danger. So after Tarin's gone.
They start phoning the police, asking them for directions, what do we do now? CLARE MACKINTOSH: She explains that Tarin has assaulted
her and her mother, that they have a court order against him and he's breached it.
And there does seem to be some confusion and quite a bit of chaos around what they should do
and where they should go. The problem was-- and that was that they really-- they didn't find the court order on their system.
And they asked, has he left? Yes, he's left. So to them, it's not problem. NARRATOR: Because of the argument inside the shisha
lounge, Raneem and her mother are also asked to leave and are now standing outside waiting
for the police to arrive. That night, particular night was so cold. Though it was in the end of August,
I've never experienced a night like that. They couldn't even bare the coldness. So they got into the car after half an hour
of waiting for the police and went. CLARE MACKINTOSH: The police do attend, but sadly by that point, Raneem felt
so frightened of being there that she and her mother had already left the scene.
NARRATOR: Terrified for her life, Raneem calls the police again just after 11 o'clock
to say that they've left the lounge and are on the way to her mother's house. At the same time, Tarin is arming
himself with a lethal weapon from his family's store. NOUR NORRIS: He went off to his father's shop,
who has very strong knives. They use it for cutting some of the meats in there. And he got a 13-inch knife.
He then tucks it down his waistband and gets back into his van. He then goes back to the shisha lounge,
but Raneem has already gone. So he's out, and he's looking and he's hunting for them,
with one thing on his mind. NOUR NORRIS: He quickly drove to my sister's house and waited behind the tree, waiting for them to come.
There's no police chasing him. He was on the loose. He was doing whatever he wants to do.
NARRATOR: Mother and daughter know they're in danger. EMMA KENNY: There does seem to be a mismatch of urgency
when it comes down to the police's response and reaction to Raneem and her mother.
They're obviously very distressed. They're obviously very worried about their personal safety.
But the way that it's dealt with is the police suggests that they're going to take a statement
the following morning. CLARE MACKINTOSH: Just after midnight, the police called Raneem back.
They told her to get inside the house, to lock the doors, and to call them if Tarin came back.
NARRATOR: When the call came in, Raneem and her mother were approaching their home.
NEIL LANCASTER: Unfortunately, what she doesn't know is that her husband is there waiting for her.
EMMA KENNY: Tarin has turned up, waited in the bushes, armed with a steak knife, and he has one intention,
and that is absolutely to murder Raneem. And anything or anyone that gets in the way
will suffer the same consequences. Whilst Raneem is speaking to the police on the phone,
her mother starts to become hysterical. And it turns out that Tarin has hid in some bushes,
and he's coming towards them. NEIL LANCASTER: She's screaming down the phone, he's here,
he's here, I can see him, I can see him. The police can hear the screams as she's being attacked,
and he attacks them viciously with the kitchen knife, stabbing them both repeatedly.
This was the most awful frenzied assault with the absolute aim of killing Raneem.
[dramatic music] Her mother came in to try and protect her so she became collateral damage as well.
He was determined that she was going to be stopped. Both women tried desperately to fight back.
They just couldn't. He managed to grab hold of Raneem. He was stabbing her. Mother tried to intervene in order to stop this.
He just turned his attention to her. EMMA KENNY: The last part of this attack is actually witnessed by Raneem's half sister.
She comes out of the door. Obviously, she'll have heard the screams, just as her half sister and her mother are dying.
Imagine that scene, watching Tarin running away. The man that they've been concerned about for months
and months, and there, he's finally done what they were afraid of. He killed both of them in a frenzied attack in the street.
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: Leaving both women fatally wounded, Tarin flees the scene.
He went to change his clothes. He bought some food. And then he went into hiding.
NARRATOR: Birmingham as a relatively large expat Afghan community. Tarin felt he could find somewhere to hide
and then flee the country. Police had a double murder and a manhunt on their hands.
[dramatic music] Janbaz Tarin was a wanted man. He had married in an Islamic ceremony
only for his Birmingham, England based wife to discover that he was already married
with a family in Afghanistan. He had lied to her and to her mother. August 26, 2018, and they're dead at his hands,
whilst he is on the run. This is a man who's quite used to living on the edges, running, and hiding.
He's got lives going on in different countries. He's got families in different countries.
This is not unusual for him. He probably thought, I'll just do that, and then I'll go off and start another life somewhere else.
They won't catch me. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: The streets and neighborhoods of Britain's second city became the hunting ground
for a killer. The search itself presented dangers. Police decided that they needed the help of the community
itself to first track him down. Warning not to approach him, they released images of Tarin
to help the public recognize him. CLARE MACKINTOSH: Tarin was on the run for three days,
becoming one of Britain's most wanted criminals. A 5,000 pound reward was offered for information
leading to his arrest. NAZIR AFZAL: When he was on the run, the police appealed for help, particularly
from the Afghan community of which he was a part. And the community would be rather confused, I imagine.
Some of them would be very supportive of what he had done. They would perhaps feel a sense of ownership
that he's one of us, therefore, we should look after our own. Thankfully, there were others undoubtedly
within the community that saw, well, we apply the rights of this country, namely
the British rules. And therefore, we should support the police. We should be able to provide information.
CLARE MACKINTOSH: And it was a tip-off from a member of the public that resulted in police
finding him hiding in a storage area of a cornershop. NEIL LANCASTER: Following a tip-off,
police went to Naga Food Store in Sparkhill in Birmingham. He's soon found, and there is a chase.
CLARE MACKINTOSH: And Tarin once again went on the run, this time on foot. [dramatic music]
CCTV shows Tarin running from police before jumping onto a car in an attempt to get away.
The fight that ensued resulted in incapacitant spray being used. But eventually, Tarin was brought under control.
He's detained, and he's arrested. [dramatic music] [groans] That's it. Yeah, it's not going to wash out.
[interposing voices] Open your eyes. NARRATOR: Nour Norris accepted the police invitation
to speak for her family, a family that had lost a young woman and her mother, who had fled to England because it was
safer than a war zone in Syria. They were the support of our family. They were the soul of everybody.
Losing them is one thing, but being gone in the way they did, is another thing. But one particular single man who
thought that their life should be his and because you can't have them, they have to go.
He broke us all apart really. I can't explain to you the pain we live every day.
[dramatic music] He wanted to take her life because he didn't love her. He just thought she's one of his things.
He owned her. She can't go for someone else. She can't be free. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: This man was always
going to kill somebody, and that somebody, more than likely, was always going to be one of his partners.
[music playing] NARRATOR: Shocked and devastated by the loss of Raneem and Khaola, the family are slowly coming to terms
with their life without them. NOUR NORRIS: Life goes on. And those people who are gone, they wouldn't want us
to be here not happy and sad. I have to be strong for them and to carry a message.
Because if they were here, if they come back, they'll do these things. They will try to make an awareness
to what happened to them. CLARE MACKINTOSH: Khaola's husband, Mohammed Saleem described what a wonderful woman his wife was.
She always worked to make the home a happy place for him and for her children. She sewed, she baked, she cooked.
She was a wonderful woman. NARRATOR: Determined not to let the murders be in vain,
Raneem's aunt is highlighting domestic abuse to raise awareness to help other women trapped like her niece.
We need to protect women by allowing their voice to be heard, by making a better system.
Those vulnerable woman we need to give them wings. We need to make them stronger not weaker.
Domestic abuse is certainly a societal problem and a social problem. And it does not have one type of perpetrator and victim model.
Unfortunately, anyone can be the victim of abuse. And anyone can be the perpetrator of abuse,
Muslim or not. What happened here is the perfect storm of some, you know, over entitled, psychopathic,
narcissistic individual, who was always going to be dangerous. But we are not going to let him take our life away from us.
NAZIR AFZAL: The case of Raneem and Tarin is certainly tragic in so many ways. Particularly in the UK, sadly, this is a problem.
However, the vast majority of domestic abuse cases in this country range from physical abuse
to emotional abuse to coercive control in many ways. And we need to be looking out for all these forms of abuse
because none of them are OK. NARRATOR: On the 17th of December, 2008, Tarin pleaded guilty to murder in Birmingham Crown Court
and was sentenced to life imprisonment and will serve at least 32 years, a much longer
than average minimum tariff. CLARE MACKINTOSH: There were numerous aggravating factors that resulted in such a long sentence.
These included the sustained premeditation. Tarin had stalked Raneem on numerous occasions.
It also included the frenzied nature of the attack, the defensive wounds that were evident on the victim's body,
and the frenzied way in which he'd carried out his attack. Now, this crime scene was described by the detective
in charge, a man who has investigated more than 100 murders, as being one of the most disgustingly violent
he's ever encountered. Now for a man with that pedigree to say those words is indicative of just what we we're dealing with here.
MARK PAYNE: This was a premeditated, cowardly attack by a man with a history of violence towards women.
He hunted down the victims. He took a weapon to the scene. He hid in waiting for them and then
jumped out and inflicted savage unsurvivable wounds on them. I want to thank the public for their response to this.
As a result of the public assistance, we managed to locate Tarin and detain him.
And he's now safely behind bars where he belongs. [dramatic music]

Janbaz Tarin coerced Raneem Oudeh into a relationship. When she tried to break free, he took the ultimate revenge.

Though wedded couples vow to stay together until death do they part, this new true crime series looks at what happens when a groom or bride causes their beloved's death.

Brief Summary

Raneem Oudeh's tragic story reveals the dangers of domestic abuse and the failure of the system to protect her from her husband, Janbaz Tarin.

Key points

Raneem's Fearful Call to Police. 20-year-old Raneem Oudeh calls the police, fearing for her life from her stalking husband.
A Chilling Wedding Threat. On her wedding day, Tarin whispers a terrifying threat to Raneem, marking the start of her nightmare.
Discovering the Truth. Raneem learns that Tarin has another wife and family in Afghanistan, revealing his deceitful nature.
The Fight for Freedom. Raneem's family urges her to leave Tarin, but she fears for her life and her family's safety.
Raneem's Escape. Raneem moves in with her mother, seeking safety from Tarin's harassment.
The Court Order. Raneem secures a non-molestation order against Tarin, feeling a sense of security.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The day you leave me, the day I kill you.

Tarin's chilling threat to Raneem on their wedding day.

0:30WatchJun 8, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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