Two men who tortured and murdered Bradford University student Tony Ho must spend a total of 55 years behind bars.

Reaben Kareem was locked up for a minimum of 30 years and Jwanru Osman for 25 years by the Recorder of Bradford, Judge James Stewart QC.

As well as sentences of life imprisonment, the 21-year-old Iraqi Kurds received ten-year concurrent jail terms for wounding Mr Ho’s sister, Sally, and her boyfriend, Gavin Stolarczyk, and conspiracy to rob all three students.

Branding Kareem “a highly dangerous man” Judge Stewart said he played the leading role in the six-hour ordeal of robbery, torture and murder at the students’ home in Grantham Road, Great Horton, Bradford, on January 22 last year.

The judge said Osman, a semi-professional footballer who wanted to be a physiotherapist, hoped to gain £10,000 from the robbery.

Osman, who clapped as the jurors left Court on Thursday after returning their guilty verdicts, looked intently at the judge during yesterday’s sentencing hearing. Kareem stared at the floor. The men were surrounded by five prison officers, one standing between them, in the secure dock at Bradford Crown Court.

Kareem and Osman blamed one another for the brutal killing of Mr Ho, 19, a chemistry and forensic science student.

Judge Stewart said the jury did not believe either of them.

“The only person who could have told us the truth is dead,” he added.

He told Kareem and Osman: “You left that house after six hours of violence and all you had gained was the unsuccessful transfer from bank accounts of £6,000 and some of their personal belongings, including a dinner jacket and bottles of aftershave.”

Kareem plotted revenge for a “paltry if not imaginary” slight on his girlfriend, Hazan Hamid, “that normal students would sort out over a beer”, said the judge.

He said Kareem “stood in the witness box as though butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth” but the image he presented to law student, Mr Stolarczyk, at the house that afternoon was “like a monster who had a look of complete hatred, evil”.

Judge Stewart said: “Knives were used to torture Tony Ho. His arms were held and transfixed up to five times.”

He commended Detective Superintendent Steve Payne and his colleagues in West Yorkshire Police’s Homicide and Major Enquiry Team and Miss Ho and Mr Stolarczyk for their recollection of the terrible events.