A scheming wife and her accomplices who plotted her husband’s murder have claimed that sentences imposed on them for the merciless killing were excessive.

Saima Hayat and her best friend Shahida Abid planned the slaying of 49-year security guard Haider Hayat.

Abid’s husband Muhammed Rauf , 42, attacked the victim who suffered at least 100 hammer blows to his head and his throat and neck were cut 16 times at a flat in Raithburn Road, in Glasgow’s Castlemilk on April 3 last year.

All three were jailed for life for the murder with Rauf ordered to serve a minimum of 24 years and the women told they would be jailed for 25 and a half years before they could seek release on licence.

Abid and Hayat were also convicted of attempting to defeat the ends of justice following the murder.

CCTV, which covered every room in the flat occupied by the Hayats, was switched off shortly before the murder.

All three of the murderers launched appeals against the minimum terms imposed on them, known as the punishment part of a life sentence.

Rauf’s defence counsel Gary Allan QC told judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh yesterday that when compared to the sentences in other cases the 24 years imposed on him could properly be regarded as excessive. He said: “I invite the court to reduce it appropriately.”

John Scott QC, for Abid, said she originally sought leave to appeal her conviction and sentence, but only an appeal against sentence was granted.

Brian McConnachie QC, for Hayat, said: “There is no coherent explanation, which is understandable, as to why the offence took place at the time it did, why it took place in the place that it did and why the level of brutality was as it was when, then, as now, the court is dealing with three people who had never been in trouble before.”

He argued that the decision to increase Hayat’s punishment part because of the attempt to defeat the ends of justice and to differentiate her from Rauf was not merited.

The Lord Justice Clerk, Lady Dorrian, who heard the appeal with Lord Menzies and Lord Turnbull, said they would reserve their decision and give a ruling at a later date.