According to a legal document, the actress and model Sophia Mirza (also known as Khushbakhat Mirza) confessed to conspiring to steal around half a million Dirhams cash and jewellery and watches worth millions of Dirhams from her former husband Umar Farooq Zahoor’s Dubai apartment through a staged robbery. She also confessed to stabbing him with the intention to kill him when domestic problems arose and the plan failed to materialise.
Sophia Mirza and Umar Farooq Zahoor married in 2006 and divorced a year later in 2007 after the birth of their twin daughters Zainab and Zuneirah, who are 15 years old now. Currently, their daughters live with their father in a posh area of Dubai’s Emaar Tower.
In the same legal document, Sophia Mirza undertook the full responsibility of conspiring with a Pakistani national air-hostess, who worked for the Emirates at the time, as well as the house maid to rob her former husband of his belongings including cash, jewellery and other expensive items. The legal paper also quotes Sophia Mirza as saying: “I conspired to steal from my husband's safe at his residence in Dubai in Emaar Tower number 2, Apartment 405. In this conspiracy my maid Razzia was involved along with a close friend of mine Ms Nasrin who is an air hostess in Emirates airline."
Sophia Mirza, who has been appearing in Pakistani dramas and comedy shows, accepted that she planned to "steal all the valuable belongings of my husband Umar Farooq Zahhor along with some 400,000 Dirhems cash which was kept in his safe." Her initial plan was to steal Umar Zahoor’s cash and jewellery from his safe and hand it over to their maid on the 25th of July 2006. The maid was to take the belongings in a bag and sneakily “leave through the garage so no one would be suspicious. Outside, my friend Nasrin was to wait in a white car along with another guy."
Sophia Mirza also explained in the legal paper that she then changed her plan in order to avoid being a suspect. She said she "decided to leave with all my husband’s belongings but later agreed that it would wake up too much attention towards me that I did the theft." So the plan was dropped and another was hatched, this a robbery was organised with a gang from Pakistan who would fly into Dubai, rob Zahoor’s flat and then flee the country.
"We planned out that we should make it look like a robbery so I wouldn’t be accused of the same. The plan was that we were going to ask someone to fly in from Pakistan and go to my home and use my keys to open the door and steal everything from the safe at a time when both me and my husband were out. I was going to provide the safe codes and the location of where the safe was located," said Sophia.
In the legal paper, she revealed that she had discussed her robbery plan with Dr. Asad, who at that time was working at a well-known hospital in Abu Dhabi. Dr Asad instantly informed Umar Farooq Zahoor about the robbery and assault plan and told him that the hitmen could assassinate him too if he resisted the robbery inside his flat. “Unfortunately, the plan of mine was disclosed to my husband by Dr. Asad. My intentions were to clean up the house and teach my husband a lesson because he didn’t give me money when I asked him. Moreover, I was afraid that my husband would find out and create trouble for me. I planned with my friends that I will fix him up in some legal trouble here in Emirates so that he couldn’t chase me back home in Pakistan," confessed Sophia.
She went on to confirm that she had stabbed her husband when he confronted her about the robbery and assault conspiracy. “I also undertake that I assaulted my husband with a knife when he confronted me about this situation. I hereby undertake full legal responsibility of my action.”
According to details, Sophia Mirza attacked Umar Farooq Zahoor with a 12 inche knife when he confronted her about her plan to rob and assault him through professional robbers flown over from Pakistan. She attempted to plunge a knife into Umar Farooq Zahoor’s heart but she was prevented when Umar Zahoor blocked the attempt and caught the knife. His thumb and a finger were severed during the assault.
Sophia Mirza was sent a copy of her confessional statement and asked to comment but she refused. A representative of Sophia Mirza said the document carried genuine signatures of Sophia Mirza. He also confirmed that she had made the confessional statement with her former husband in exchange for the deal that Umar Zahoor will not press charges against her with the Dubai Police and that she will return to Pakistan without any prosecution in the UAE, which could have resulted in a lengthy jail sentence.
Sophia Mirza and Umar Farooq Zahoor have been at loggerheads over the dispute of custody of their two daughters.
A major investigation this month revealed that Sophia Mirza conspired with Imran Khan’s Accountability and Interior Minister Shehzad Akbar to launch inquiries into him using the FIA. Shehzad Akbar tasked the FIA to issue red arrest warrants of Umar Zahoor to get him extradited from Dubai to Pakistan. The FIA sources have confirmed they were put under pressure to run false cases against Umar Zahoor.
After the story of FIA’s conspiracy with Sophia Mirza became public, daughters of Sophia and Umar Farooq said in TV interviews that they were living with their father in Dubai and didn’t wish to live with their mother and didn’t want to have anything to do with her case. They have accused their mother of staging media stunts for cheap publicity.