A British court has sentenced British-Pakistani Gohir Khan to life imprisonment for conspiring to kill Netherlands-based, self-exiled blogger and activist Ahmad Waqass Goraya, reported Dawn.

The Kingston-upon-Thames Court announced the verdict on Friday (March 12), according to the report.

The 31-year-old hitman will have to serve 13 years in prison before he can apply for parole, while the number of days he has been in prison during the investigation and trial of the case will count towards his sentence.

Convicts found guilty of conspiracy to murder can face sentences ranging between a few years to life imprisonment under section 1(1) of the UK's Criminal Law Act 1977.

Khan was declared guilty, on January 29, of conspiring to kill Goraya in the Netherlands. A jury took two days to deliberate the verdict after both sides concluded their arguments at the Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court.

Goraya was one of six bloggers that were abducted and later released in Islamabad in 2017, an incident that prompted him to leave Pakistan.

During the trial, the prosecution was able to prove that Khan was hired for the “intended” murder of the activist while it also maintained that Khan tried to travel to Rotterdam in Netherlands twice as part of that intent, only being successful the second time.

The prosecution also showed how the payment for committing the murder was significant, found to be around £100,000, at a time when Khan was in serious debt and had no way of paying it back. Jury was also told that Muzamil, found to be the Pakistan-based middleman, offered to pay at least £80,000 for the hit on Goraya, with a £20,000 commission for him.

It is still not known who Muzamil was actually working for but a money trail has been traced from a Pakistani bank account to a hundi transfer in London made to Khan as an advance, which was then used for the travel to Rotterdam.

Following the conclusion of the trial in February, the UK's counter terrorism police warned the Pakistani dissidents who were living in exile in Britain to keep a low profile.

Counter Terrorism Policing — a collaboration of UK police forces and security services — spoke to possible targets that they needed to inform police if they intended to travel within the UK, read a The Guardian report.