Maryland man pleads guilty to plotting wife’s murder, getting her arrested as terrorist

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A restaurateur from Anne Arundel County, Maryland, got caught in the tangled web he wove to get his Pakistani-origin wife murdered and labeled a terrorist. He pleaded guilty Dec. 12, after his plot unraveled when police secretly monitored his moves to uncover his deceit, a press release from the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, reveals.

Khalil Ahmad, 51, admitted to violating protective orders on several occasions, plotting to get his wife murdered, setting his wife up to be arrested as a terrorist, and soliciting a man to burn down his restaurant for getting the insurance money.

As a result of his guilty plea to the federal stalking charge, the Anne Arundel County, Howard County, and Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Offices have agreed to dismiss their pending cases against Ahmad. But he faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison for stalking and is subject to removal from the United States upon completion of his sentence.  U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett has scheduled sentencing for March 12, 2019.

The riveting story begins from the time the couple got married in July 2015.  During their marriage, Ahmad threatened to kill his wife using a firearm.  In April 2018, the she told Ahmad that she wanted a divorce.

On April 24, 2018, Ahmad threatened to kill himself after driving to his wife’s home and in the presence of her children, staged a dramatic scene pouring gasoline on himself and holding a lighter threatening to light himself on fire if she did not take him back.

She got a temporary protective order but Ahmad violated the order by contacting her on the phone a few days later and in May and also followed her vehicle in one of the instances

Criminal summonses were issued in Howard County (two counts) and in Prince George’s County (three counts) for violating a protective order.

To further harass the victim and put her in fear of her life, Ahmad also contacted her relatives, members of her religious community, and her ex-husband, telling them she was not a good person and that she was having a romantic relationship with another man; Ahmad also threatened to have his brother-in-law killed in Pakistan; and threatened to have the victim killed if she returned to Pakistan. She was fearful of visiting her family in Pakistan.

The plot thickened after his wife procured a Final Protective Order that remains in effect through May 7, 2019.  Ahmad admitted that beginning in May, he solicited an individual (CW) to harass her, then telling him he wanted his wife murdered; and then that he wanted her framed as a terrorist by planting incriminating evidence on her.

That didn’t work because CW went to law enforcement authorities who then taped several further discussions Ahmad had with CW about his intentions.

Ahmad gave CW $5,000 in cash over two separate meetings, as a down payment and different ways to identify her and her vehicle so the deeds could be carried out before she could testify at his upcoming protective order hearing.

The calls and meetings recorded by law enforcement showed Ahmad also wanted CW to commit an arson at his Allah Rakha Restaurant so that Ahmad could collect the insurance payout from the fire, which he had recently raised to $200,000.

Ahmad’s eventual arrest runs like a movie.

On June 5, investigators staged a scene involving people who looked like  Anne Arundel County police officers and detectives searching the his wife’s vehicle, taking photographs, providing them to CW, who then met Ahmad and showed him the staged photos. Ahmad told him he would pay him the remaining money, the last after his wife was actually arrested.

Later that same day, Anne Arundel Police Department and FBI investigators went to Ahmad’s residence to conduct a ruse, informing him that his wife had been arrested and asking if investigators could talk to him about his wife.  Ahmad spun his false stories falling right into their trap.