Leicester suitcase murder: Man strangled ex-wife with scarf, court told
A mother of two was strangled by her ex-husband with her own scarf, "trussed up in a suitcase" and left in an alleyway, Leicester Crown Court heard.
Kiran Daudia's body was discovered on 17 January 2017 close to rubbish bins, a day after she was allegedly killed.
The court heard her former husband Ashwin Daudia, who she shared the same house with, assaulted and "quite deliberately" killed the 46-year-old.
Mr Daudia, now 51, of Lyme Road, Leicester, denies murdering her.
He previously told police "I haven't killed her".
The pair wed in an arranged marriage in India in 1988, but divorced in 2014.
The court heard they continued to live under the same roof, despite their troubled relationship. Their two sons chose to "side" with their mother and had relatively little to do with their father.
Opening the case, prosecutor William Harbage QC said: "(Kiran Daudia's) body was discovered trussed up in a suitcase on the day after she disappeared.
"The person who murdered her and then disposed of her body was her former husband, this defendant, Ashwin Daudia.
"There was an argument between the defendant and Kiran Daudia. There was a struggle in which he assaulted her.
"The defendant then, quite deliberately, killed his former wife by strangling her with some sort of ligature, probably her own scarf."
Mr Harbage said Mr Daudia, who followed proceedings through a Gujarati interpreter, then "crammed Kiran's dead body" into a suitcase and wheeled it out into the yard where his son would not see it.
He added that instead of raising the alarm, "showing remarkable coolness in the circumstances, he tried to cover up what he had done".
Mr Harbage told the jury that Mrs Daudia had wanted her ex-husband out of the house for some time and was due to sell it to her sister on the day she was killed.
Selling the house would have allowed her to stay as a resident and Mr Daudia would have had to move on, the court heard.
He added: "After the divorce, Kiran joined a dating agency and had started to meet other men.
"That may also have been a source of tension or resentment for the defendant."
The trial, which is expected to last three weeks, continues.