PHOTOS: GLOBAL NEWSimpacted negatively with my actions,” he
said. “Especially to the people who knew
my family – friends and loved ones who
I know could have never seen something
like this from me happening.”
The judge was openly damning about
his actions and said that what he’d done
was “deeply disturbing” and deserving of
severe punishment.
“Words such as brutal, cruel, cold and
callous do not begin to convey the enormity
of his violence,” she said. “It is difficult to
imagine a more horrific way to take a human
life than by slitting the victim’s throat. Mr
Zaman did so not just once, but four separate
times over a span of hours.
“No right-thinking member of society
would see any remote correlation between
the imminent disclosure of the secret of Mr
Zaman’s non-attendance at school and the
vicious taking of the lives of the four people
closest to him.”BETRAYAL OF TRUST
The judge added that it was a “betrayal of
trust” that took place in the family home
where everyone should feel safe. She was
in disbelief that while his mum and gran lay
dead upstairs, Zaman played video games
and napped while he waited to execute his
dad and sister the same way.
Zaman, 24, was sentenced to life in prison
with no chance of parole for 40 years,
which means he’ll be 64 before he
gets the opportunity to taste freedom.
Zaman had been living a lie for
years and that charade came to an
end with a violent quadruple murder.
His loved ones were slain without
even knowing why, at the hands
of a family member they idolised.
Zaman had killed to keep his secret- but now the whole world knows.
GAIL SHORTLAND
a failure with a double life, which was
something he admitted he’d been dreading.
Investigators discovered that he’d texted
friends after the killings saying he’d been
“planning this for three years”. And that
while he was a “pathetic coward” and
“subhuman”, after killing his whole family,
the “shaking has stopped”.
In September 2020, Zaman pleaded
guilty to three counts of first-degree murder,
relating to his grandmother, dad and sister,
and one of second-degree murder relating
to his mum.
The court was told that he had slit the
throats of his entire family, simply to avoid
telling them the truth. It’s possible that if the
case had gone to trial, his mother’s charge
would have been first-degree, but the court
accepted the plea.
Two months later, Zaman faced
sentencing in a virtual, Covid-restricted
courtroom, and he spoke briefly. “I would
like to just apologise to anyone I havehome. When Malesa walked in the door, he
hit her over the head and slit her throat, too.
It would be closer to midnight, an hour
later, when his dad got back from work,
and Zaman finished off his despicable
spree by bludgeoning him over the head
and cutting his throat.
Zaman was now in a house with the
corpses of his family. Instead of calling
911, or even going on the run, he started to
talk to his online gaming friends. “I’ve just
slaughtered my entire family,” he wrote,
and said that he was likely to spend the
rest of his life in prison.
HOLDING A BLOODY KNIFE
At first, they thought he was joking and this
was a twisted way to get attention in the
virtual world. But then Zaman sent some
pictures of the bodies to a few friends, and
a selfie of himself holding a bloody knife,
and they grew deeply alarmed.
With only a gaming username for Zaman,
and Canada as his location, the online
community scrambled to alert authorities.
Eventually an IP address was tracked
to Zaman’s home and officers arrived
there on the afternoon of 28 July.
Zaman was still there – and upstairs
were the bodies of Momotaz, Moniruz,
Firoza and Malesa.
Zaman was arrested and initially
charged with four counts of first-degree
murder. The massacre shocked the
community, and everyone was in disbelief
that the killings had been carried out by
Zaman – the golden boy who helped his
mum carry the shopping and had so much
to look forward to. He’d never been in
trouble in his entire life.
Zaman admitted that he’d killed his family
because they were about to find out that
he’d lied for years about his education. He
didn’t want them to discover that he was
CRIME SPECIAL
He killed his mum
Momotaz firstHis dad Moniruz was
last to be slaughteredHis sister
Malesa also
perished......along with her
grandmother FirozaZaman’s online gaming friends were
stunned to learn of the massacreThe crime scene