LONDON – Two bungling British hit men who went to the wrong address and stabbed a teenager to death instead of their intended victim were convicted of murder Friday.
Ben Hope, 39, and Jason Richards, 38, were paid £1,000 ($1,600) each to kill a man who owed money to an underworld businessman, prosecutors said. But the pair, both heroin addicts, killed 17-year-old Aamir Siddiqi on his doorstep instead. Hope and Richards also attacked the teen’s parents as they tried to save their son, who had wanted to be a lawyer.
A jury at Swansea Crown Court unanimously found the pair guilty of Siddiqi’s 2010 murder in Cardiff, Wales. The two also were convicted of the attempted murder of Siddiqi’s parents.
Prosecutors said the killers, former prison cellmates, had acted with “staggering incompetence.” After carrying out the attack at a house on the wrong street, Hope drove away in a stolen car. It was found abandoned, covered in his fingerprints and the victim’s blood. Richards denied being at the scene of the murder.