The two men accused of murdering Bradford University student Tony Ho were on a planned mission to punish and rob, a Court was told yesterday.

In his closing speech to the jury at Bradford Crown Court, Paul Greaney QC, barrister for the Crown, said Reaben Kareem was “the driving force” in the plot and Jwanru Osman his “willing subordinate and henchman”.

Mr Greaney said the defendants, both 21-year-old Iraqi Kurds, were friends who shared a cultural heritage.

He alleged they were armed when they went to student accommodation in Grantham Road, Great Horton, Bradford, and Osman must have known there could be violence.

Mr Greaney said of Osman: “That man has lied and lied again, including to you the jury, about what he did in that house.”

Kareem, of Coal Pool, Walsall, West Midlands, and Osman, of Northolt, Middlesex, deny murdering Mr Ho, a chemistry and forensic science student, on January 22 last year.

Mr Ho, 19, a rugby player, was stabbed repeatedly, his bank account plundered and his throat cut.

Kareem pleads guilty to wounding Mr Ho’s sister, Sally, a pharmacy student, and her boyfriend, law student Gavin Stolarczyk, with intent to cause them grievous bodily harm and conspiracy to rob. Osman denies all the charges.

Mr Greaney said Miss Ho and Mr Stolarczyk were terrorised in an ordeal lasting more than six hours “not a mile from the courtroom”.

Kareem smashed a vodka bottle on Miss Ho’s head and stabbed Mr Stolarczyk in his side. Both were bound and gagged in the cellar.

Mr Greaney said Kareem and Osman “carted away” property belonging to all three students after drugging Miss Ho and Mr Stolarczyk and ordering them to blame “local Pakistani men” for the crime.

Mr Greaney said Osman went with a wheel brace as part of an agreed plan to “rob and teach a lesson”.

Kareemwas a gambling addict desperate for money after stealing from his father’s account, the court heard. The trial continues.