Australian man who tried to dissolve teenage wife’s body in acid bath jailed
Meraj Zafar was previously issued a restraining order for threatening Arnima Hayat’s father over his intention to marry the victim
A 23-year-old Australian man has been sentenced by a court in Sydney to more than two decades behind bars for murdering his pregnant teenage wife and attempting to dissolve her body in acid.
Meraj Zafar received 21½ years’ imprisonment after admitting to killing Arnima Hayat in January 2022 and submerging the corpse in hydrochloric acid in his home bathtub.
He was sentenced through a video link hearing at the Supreme Court last December, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported in the same month, adding that the 19-year-old victim was identified through DNA testing months after the murder in the couple’s home in the North Parramatta suburb, northeast of Sydney.
Zafar previously had a restraining order issued against him after he threatened Hayat’s father, Abu Hayat, in a phone conversation in 2021, according to a report by The Mirror. The older man was hesitant when Zafar asked him for his blessing to marry his daughter, the report said.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Zafar killed Hayat out of fear she would leave him. ABC cited the judge as saying Zafar murdered his wife by “obstructing her breathing or smothering her”.
The Sydney Morning Herald report also stated Zafar – who pleaded guilty last May – was caught on surveillance footage buying “five 20-litre tubs of acid over two trips”.
He then googled, “can hydrochloric acid burn through skin”, along with the length of a prison sentence for murder.