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Coral Springs Man Guilty Of Trying To Hire Hit Man To Kill Witnesses

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – A Broward County jury has found a Coral Springs man guilty of trying to hire a hit man to kill four witnesses in his case. Little did he know, the person he believed to be a hit man was a police officer.

Munawar Toha was found guilty Friday morning on all counts of solicitation of murder.

Prosecutors said he wanted to kill four people who are going to testify against him when he stands trial for murdering his wife.

While in jail, Toha met inmate Oscar Izguierdo. Izuierdo said he acted as the middleman and put him in touch with a so-called private investigator who would take care of four witnesses whose statements helped detectives build a murder case.

Toha didn't know the person believed to a hit man was really Fort Lauderdale Police Detective William Walker who secretly recorded his conversations with Toha.

Toha reported his wife Surya missing in April of 2010 and made a tearful public plea for help to find her. Detectives later uncovered surveillance video which, they say, shows Toha driving his family car into a canal behind his workplace at 4100 N. Powerline Road. His wife's body was discovered in the submerged vehicle.

According to police, she suffered multiple head wounds and may have been asphyxiated. A plastic bag was over her head when her body was found.

Toha faces up to 30 years in prison on the solicitation of murder charges and life in prison if convicted of murder.

The trial date for his wife's murder has not been set yet.

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