THE victim of a horrific acid attack said it felt like his whole body was burning and he was in so much pain he wanted to die.

Awais Akram, 25, described his terror after the noxious drain cleaner liquid was poured over his head and body in Marchant Road, in Leytonstone, in July last year.

At the Old Bailey yesterday, Mohammed Vakas, 26, of Hatherley Road, Walthamstow, was found guilty of conspiracy to murder Mr Akram in a revenge attack for a relationship he was having with Vakas' married sister.

Mohammed Adeel, 20, of Pearl Road, Walthamstow, and a 17-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons, were both found guilty of conspiracy to cause GBH.

All three are due to be sentenced today.

Speaking through an Urdu interpreter, Mr Akram said: “When I started feeling this, I did not know how to understand it. I started burning, my whole body started to burn.

“At that point I just felt that I would be dead. Death was, I felt, a better solution than to be burning like this.”

Mr Akram survived the attack but had 47 per cent burns on his upper body, facial fractures and eye injuries, and faces a lifetime of treatment to help him recover.

He said he has been helped by his family and his wife Sameera, 27, who he had just married at the time of the assault.

Mr Akram said: “I thank God, I thank Allah, that I am still alive and that I have the support of everyone.”

He added: “Everybody has been praying for me. I know the doctors had said I would not survive.”

Doctors at the Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex, are continuing to treat Mr Akram for the chemical burns but he says he is not sure how much the scarring on his face can be repaired.

“Whenever I am walking on the road, people are looking at me in the way that upsets me,” he said.

Mr Akram was attacked last July after meeting Sadia Khatoon on Facebook and he said what happened has changed the way he interacts with people.

He said: “Even now with old friends, we haven’t had too much contact. I only speak to those friends who I trust. I can’t trust people very easily now.”

He said he was speaking out about the effects of the attack “so that people would know what I have gone through, what these people have done to me."

Mr Akram described how on the night he had heard footsteps from behind him before being attacked.

He said: "Three or four people surrounded me and then they all started to assault me by beating, then they threw acid before they left.

“At that time I did not know that this was acid, when they were trying to push it into my mouth, but I knew that there was something very dangerous that they were trying to force into my mouth.

“This is why I tried to cover my mouth, but he did throw it on me.

“At that time I wasn’t conscious enough to understand but whenever I think of it now I really start shaking and shivering, and I can’t believe that someone can do this to another person.”

He added: “Because of this attack on me I feel that all my confidence is lost and my life is all changed.

“I have a fear that somebody is going to attack me from behind, I always have that in my mind all the time.”

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