Sunday, July 3 2005 11:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: Three British gangsters convicted of killing NRI entrepreneur Amarjit Chohan and four of his family members face life in prison and will be sentenced next week.

In its judgement, the Old Bailey court of London found 56-year-old Kenneth Regan, a convicted drug dealer, and two of his accomplices guilty of murdering the millionaire businessman, his wife Nancy, 25, their two infant sons and his mother-in-law Charanjit Kaur, who was visiting them from India.

All died at the hands of the ruthless men, who planned to take over Chohan's haulage company CIBA and use it to smuggle drugs. Regan lured Chohan to a meeting at Stonehenge and held him captive for several days, forcing him to record a telephone message that drew his wife and two children, into the trap.

After killing Chohan, 46, his wife, two children and his mother-in-law, Regan buried the five bodies on a farmland, later disposing them of at sea.

After a two-year inquiry involving thousands of police officers and a 10-million-pound eight-month trial, the court held Regan and William Horncy, 56, guilty of all five murders in one of the longest murder trials in British criminal history.

The third accused, Peter Rees, 38, was found guilty of only Chohan's murder.

The police became involved only because Nancy's brother, Onkar Verma, who was living in New Zealand, refused to believe that his mother and sister would disappear without a trace.