A double murderer kept his female victims in a freezer and allowed their bodies to partially decompose when the electricity supply was cut, a court has heard. Police made a “very grim discovery indeed” in April last year when they pried open the lid of the lockable freezer in an east London one-bedroom flat occupied by Zahid Younis. Inside were the remains of Henriett Szucs, 34, who was last seen alive with Younis in August 2016, and Mihrican Mustafa, 38, who disappeared in May 2018 after talking to him on the phone. Both had “suffered severe violence” before they died, the prosecutor, Duncan Penny QC, told Southwark crown court. He said Younis “murdered each of these women and thereafter sought to conceal their remains in the freezer”. “It would appear there were periods when the electricity supply was disconnected – contributing to some decomposition of the bodies by the time they were discovered,” said Penny. Younis has pleaded not guilty to the killings. The jury was told that during the trial that they would hear evidence that Younis had the “disposition to manipulate and control vulnerable women – capable of seeking to dominate them, to subject them to his will and if necessary of resorting to violence”. Szcus, who was Hungarian, had “dreadful injuries to her head” and her blood was found on carpets in Younis’ flat, Penny told the court. All but two of her ribs were fractured, he added. Before she died, Szcus kept a diary in which she detailed Younis’s violent attacks against her. Mustafa, a mother of three, appeared to have been strangled and stamped on by Younis, the court was then told. A postmortem found that her larynx, sternum and several ribs were fractured. The belongings of both victims were found in Younis’s Canning Town flat. When he was arrested on 30 April 2019, he told police: “It’s my problem, no one else is involved.” But under interview he chose not to comment, the court heard. The prosecution alleged that Younis bought the freezer in the autumn of 2016, under a false name and with cash, for the “sole purpose” of hiding the body of Szcus, his first victim. Later, it said Younis told a WhatsApp group that he “wanted to get rid of” a woman in his home before putting Mustafa’s body in the freezer in May or June 2018. His telephone records showed he was in contact with Mustafa before she died. She never used her phone again after speaking to him at 3.12pm on 2 May 2018, the court heard. Soon afterwards, Younis removed the carpets in the flat and replaced them with wooden flooring. Around this time he was also seen hanging up large volumes of wet clothes on a communal washing line, the jury was told. Younis left the flat shortly before the bodies were discovered. Penny told the court: “Come April 2019, the defendant had become so acutely conscious of what was contained within that freezer, and the risk of discovery – if not just from the odour that emitted from the freezer – that it appears that he had chosen to abandon the address.” The trial continues.