Kashif Anwar, 29, from Leeds, was found guilty of the September 2021 murder of Fawziyah Javed, 31, and that of her unborn child, after a six-day trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Ms Javed, about 17 weeks pregnant when she was pushed from Arthur’s Seat, used her dying words to reveal it was her abusive husband who caused her to fall about 50ft before her body came to a rest.
Daniyah Rafique, 24, managed to reach the dying employment lawyer on the side of the hill, where she was told: “Don’t let my husband near me, he pushed me.”
Police Constable Rhiannon Clutton, 35, was told by Ms Javed that her husband did it because she “told him I wanted to end (the marriage)”.
Judge Lord Beckett imposed a mandatory life sentence on Anwar with an imprisonment period of a minimum of 20 years.
He told Anwar: “You have been found guilty of murdering Fawziyah Javed who was a very special person.
“She was your pregnant wife and you also caused the death of your unborn child.”
He told the killer that his victim was willing to trust that he would keep her safe when they went up Arthur’s Seat, but that he pushed her off when nobody else was around.
The judge said Ms Javed’s mother, Yasmin Javed, had described her as a “beautiful soul inside and out” who was a popular woman.
As Anwar was handcuffed and taken to the cells, a family member of Ms Javed shouted “die you bastard” at him.
Jurors were visibly upset after the result,
Ms Javed’s family said their “pain and grief is immeasurable and on an unimaginable scale” and that “to say we are going through the most tortuous and devastating time doesn’t even touch the surface”.
“This is a lifetime of grief and pain. Our life sentence began the day that our daughter was brutally murdered. Whilst we welcome the verdict, this outcome does not feel like justice when compared to what we have lost,” the family said in a statement outside the High Court in Edinburgh.
“There will never be closure of justice for us. We have had our lives ripped apart and Fawziyah is no longer with us. The effects of this tragedy, what we have gone through and are going through, will be with us till our last breath.”
In the statement, read out by Natasha Rattu from charity Karma Nirvana, the family said the University of Sheffield graduate was “the centre of our world, our heartbeat and our everything” and added: “We lived and breathed for Fawziyah. Fawziyah was the glue that held the family together.”
The statement said: “Fawziyah has left the biggest void in our lives. The spark has gone out of our lives forever. There is no more joy and the zest of life has gone.
“We have been left in the depths of darkness forever to suffer this lifelong loss.
“We miss and think about you every single second of the day. We are not living anymore, just existing and taking each minute, hour, day at a time.”