Munir Hussain is a British businessman and community leader[1] who was jailed for 30 months following an attack on a burglar who had broken into his home and threatened him and his family.
Munir Hussain, 53 years old at the time, is married to Shaheen Begum, 49, has two sons Awais, 21 and Samad, 15, and two daughters, Farah, 25 and Arooj, 18.
On 3 September 2008, during Ramadan, Mr. and Mrs. Hussain, their two sons and daughter Arooj, returned home to their house in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, from their mosque, when they were confronted and tied up by three masked intruders.
If persons were permitted to take the law into their own hands and inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting the criminal justice system take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse.On 20 January 2010 the Court of Appeal reduced Munir's sentence to one year, suspended for two years, which meant he was immediately freed.
[6] It was later claimed that the motive for the break-in was not burglary, but that a man who (wrongly) believed his wife had had an affair with Munir Hussain had hired the three intruders to carry out an 'honour' attack.
It didn't seem it had been done out of a desire to steal anything, rather that it was directed at the people who lived there.On 29 March 2010 at Reading Crown Court, Wahleed Hussain, Munir's nephew, was freed after the jury were unable to reach a verdict over a charge of grievous bodily harm with intent relating to the attack on Salem.
Judge Reddihough made this clear in his original judgement,[4] and the then director of public prosecutions, later leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, Keir Starmer QC, said after the conviction of Munir.
[citation needed] On the other hand, if Munir had had time to reflect on what had happened, and had then looked for Salem and beaten him up, his appeal would probably not have been successful, because it would have been considered a revenge attack.
[citation needed] The appeal succeeded (partially) because Paul Mendelle QC:[6]The court of appeal relied upon his [Munir's] impeccable character and the fact it was a provoked unplanned attack, and the very strong psychiatric evidence in this case.In September 2009, Walid Salem, then 57, was given a two-year non-custodial supervision order to the charge of false imprisonment of the Hussain family, as he was considered unfit to plead due to brain damage caused by the attack by Munir and Tokeer Hussain.