THE alleged mastermind of an armed raid which saw Keighley police officer Sharon Beshenivsky shot dead has said one of the robbers offered to "get his money back" from the owner of the travel agents where she was killed.

Piran Ditta Khan claimed he was owed £12,000 by the owner of Universal Express, but that he had never visited the business’s premises in Morley Street, Bradford.

Unarmed PC Beshenivsky and her colleague PC Teresa Milburn were shot at point blank range as they responded to the robbery at Universal Express in November, 2005.

Jurors have heard a total of seven men were involved in carrying out the raid, with alleged ringleader Khan the last to face trial almost two decades on.

Prosecutors say Khan, 75, was the only one of the group who was familiar with Universal Express after using the business to send money to family in Pakistan.

Khan told Leeds Crown Court he had used the owner of Universal Express, Mohammad Yousaf, to transfer money since 1968 but had never been to the premises.

He said Mr Yousaf and his nephew Mohammad Ishaque had “lost his trust” after £12,000 he gave them to send to his brother in Pakistan in 1996 was not transferred, and he never used them again after that.

Khan said Hassan Razzaq, one of the seven men who went on to carry out the robbery, offered to “get his money back” after he told him the story of the missing money while on a business trip to Aberdeen.

The defendant told jurors he had met Razzaq through a business associate.

Khan said Razzaq never told him how he was planning to get the money back.

The court has heard Khan travelled to Pakistan two months after the robbery and evaded arrest until he was detained by Pakistani authorities in 2020 and extradited to the UK last year.

Prosecutors say that although Khan was not one of the three men who carried out the robbery, and did not leave the safety of a Mercedes SLK that was allegedly being used as a lookout car, he is guilty of PC Beshenivsky’s murder due to his “pivotal” role in planning the raid knowing that loaded weapons were to be used.

Khan denies murder, two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon.

The trial continues.