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British man found guilty of plot to murder prominent Pakistani blogger

Jury trial convicts supermarket worker who was recruited as a hitman.

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A British man has been found guilty of plotting to kill a prominent Pakistani blogger in the Netherlands after being hired as a hitman with a fee of £100,000.

A jury trial convicted supermarket worker Muhammed Gohir Khan, 31, of plotting to kill the blogger and liberal activist Ahmad Waqass Goraya after being recruited by middlemen.

The judge postponed the sentencing until March 11.

Prosecutor Alison Morgan, said Goraya, who lives with his wife and two children in the Netherlands, appeared to have been targeted for his satirical social media posts.

In 2018, Goraya had "received information from the FBI that he was on a kill list", she added, saying he feared a state-orchestrated attack.

Goraya, who has lived outside Pakistan for more than a decade, did not attend the hearings.

Khan, from east London, was charged in June last year with conspiring with unknown other people to murder Goraya in the Netherlands.

He was arrested after returning to the UK by train.

British police liaised with the Dutch authorities to build up a dossier of his encrypted communications with middlemen on WhatsApp and Signal and security camera footage of his movements.

After travelling to the Netherlands on Eurostar, Khan spent days watching Goraya's home in Rotterdam and bought a professional chef's knife.

He returned to the UK after realising the blogger was away.

Khan, who pleaded not guilty at his trial held at Kingston-upon-Thames in southwest London, acknowledged sending the messages and travelling to Rotterdam, but claimed he was only seeking money and never intended to commit the killing.

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