A MURDER suspect from Oldbury and his ex wife deny murdering her lover, music shop boss Tanveer Iqbal.

The 33-year-old father-of-two had been strangled and crammed into a cardboard box designed for a TV and left in the boot of his car.

A pathologist said he died from from compression to the neck and that “moderate force” had been used on Sunday January 31.

Giving evidence at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday (Wednesday) Zatoon Bibi admitted Mr Iqbal, her lover, and her ex-husband Gul Nawaz had argued at her home in Bridgeburn Road, Bartley Green, because Nawaz was unhappy with the “arrangements”.

The suspects had split up several years ago but Bibi frequently stayed at Nawaz’s Roway Lane home with her children whom he would look after when she went to meet her lover.

She had married Mr Iqbal in a London mosque but shortly afterwards discovered he was already married, which she said she accepted as it was normal in Islamic culture to have two wives.

But she admitted in court that for at least a few weeks before the killing she had only visited Mr Iqbal at Bridgeburn Road twice a week and the rest of the time had been living at Roway Lane.

On the day of Mr Iqbal’s death, he had arranged to meet her at his house to celebrate his birthday and Bibi claimed Nawaz drove them both there because he was unhappy with the “arrangements” and wanted to confront him.

Under cross examination she accepted she drove the vehicle, but insisted it was Nawaz, aged 44, who wanted to speak to her lover. She said the pair argued and moved towards each other.

A 16-year-old boy, also charged with the murder, tried to stop them but Mr Iqbal went to hit Nawaz and the boy kicked him and he fell to the floor.

Bibi said Nawaz stood up and she told him to leave but he didn’t and the argument between the two men raged on.

She said Mr Iqbal was very angry and threw toys piled up in the room at Nawaz.

She and the 16-year-old were ordered to the bathroom, where they stayed for about 20 minutes until the shouting and swearing ended.

When Bibi came downstairs, she saw Mr Iqbal’s clothes and belongings on the floor and said Nawaz told her Mr Iqbal had run away because he was scared.

The 37-year-old, whose marriage to Nawaz had been arranged when she was 18, said the 16-year-old was first ordered downstairs to “cut some tapes” and then told to help Nawaz put a TV box in the back of Mr Iqbal’s Renault Clio, which she had been ordered to reverse onto the drive.

Bibi told the court she was made to drive the vehicle away from the house and left it in Portland Road, Edgbaston, because she thought Mr Iqbal would find it there.

She then started walking towards Oldbury, a route that would have taken her past Mr Iqbal’s Hi Tech music shop in Smethwick.

The prosecution claimed CCTV footage showed her removing a pair of light-coloured gloves from her hands and discarding them in a waste bin as she walked, but Bibi claimed it was a tissue she was throwing away.

Bibi said she was picked up in Smethwick High Street by Nawaz in his Vauxhall Zafira car which he had driven away from the Bridgeburn Road address with the 16-year-old boy moments after she had left.

They drove to his Oldbury home in Roway Lane and Bibi said she was threatened by Nawaz not to say Mr Iqbal had been at the house or that there had been a fight.

She said: “He said if you tell anyone – see what I am going to do to you.”

The court had earlier heard Nawaz had bought rope, reinforced tape and two pairs of gloves from Poundland on the day Mr Iqbal died.

The trial continues.