A man has been jailed for at least 26 years for the “cold-blooded murder” of his ex-wife and the burying of her body in his garden.

Alireza Askari, 42, admitted killing Paria Veisi, 37, at the property they previously shared in Penylan, Cardiff, in April last year.

Veisi had separated from her husband and moved out of the house earlier that month, Cardiff crown court heard.

Police found her body buried in a “makeshift grave” in the rear garden, concealed by patio slabs, soil and newly planted flowers.

On Friday, Justice Stacey sentenced Askari to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 26 years for the “cold-blooded murder” of Veisi.

William Hughes KC, prosecuting, said Askari had murdered his ex-wife in the conservatory of the house at about 4.30pm on 12 April before attempting to destroy any evidence with the help of his aunt Maryam Delavary, 48.

The court previously heard Askari and Veisi had moved to the UK from Iran in 2010 and had married, but were living separately at the time of the murder.

Analysis of Askari’s phone found he had been texting a woman in Iran, believed to be his girlfriend, before the killing. In one message, he told the woman: “I’m planning for them to kill her in Iran.”

On the day of the attack, Askari bought the suspected murder weapon, a set of kitchen knives, from a supermarket before returning home.

Hughes said that after burying Veisi in a makeshift grave, Askari rang Delavary in London before making another trip to the supermarket, where he bought bleach, compost and plants.

Delavary travelled to Cardiff in a taxi “to assist in the covering up of Paria’s murder”, Hughes said.

A friend of Veisi contacted South Wales police the day after the murder, raising concerns that she was “being kept against her will by her ex-husband”, and a missing person investigation was launched.

On 15 April, Askari was arrested while driving from Birmingham to Cardiff. Canisters containing caustic soda were found inside the vehicle. Hughes said: “These chemicals … were to be used in the destruction of Paria’s remains.”

Veisi’s body was found during a search of the property. She had four stab wounds, and injuries to her chest and neck.

Addressing Askari, Justice Stacey said: “She was in the prime of her life, her death has destroyed her family’s happiness, as you knew it would.

“You subjected Paria to abuse at home and [she] was fearful of you; Paria confided to her friends how scared she was of you.

“You recruited your aunt … You did everything in your power to cover up the murder, to destroy evidence and to hinder the South Wales police investigation.”

He said Askari had killed Veisi because she had left him and wanted a divorce. “Your hypocrisy was staggering – at the same time you wanted [Paria] out of the way so you could take up with your girlfriend in Iran.”

Askari, of Penylan, Cardiff, had previously pleaded guilty to murder and preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body. A further charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm was ordered to lie on file.

Delavary, of White City estate, west London, previously pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. She was sentenced to five years and six months in prison.

Rachel Reeves will set out extra support next week for households across the UK facing a surge in the cost of heating oil due to the conflict in the Middle East.

The chancellor is expected to set out plans to assist those on low incomes or with other vulnerabilities, particularly in rural areas. The help will be delivered in England via councils using the new crisis and resilience fund.

While the amounts involved have not yet been set out, it is understood that ministers could provide extra support to this fund if needed. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, devolved governments will receive money to deliver the help.

Heating oil, which provides heating and hot water for an estimated 1.7m UK households, is not covered by Ofgem’s energy price cap.

In some examples seen by the Guardian this week, customers have seen quoted costs to refill tanks almost triple since the disruption to fuel supplies after the US-Israeli war on Iran began.

In Northern Ireland, heating oil is the primary heating source for two-thirds of households.

Reeves said this week she recognised the “unique challenges” faced by people reliant on heating oil, and has asked Spencer Livermore, the financial secretary to the Treasury, to discuss possible remedies with rural and Northern Irish MPs.

As well as putting pressure on petrol retailers not to exploit the Iran crisis to excessively increase forecourt prices, ministers have asked the Competition and Markets Authority watchdog to look out for unjustified increases in the price of heating oil.

People who use the fuel generally purchase it in bulk to fill tanks, often because their home is not connected to the mains gas network.

As wholesale prices of heating oil have risen, some people have had pre-existing orders cancelled, forcing them to order again at a higher price. Others have struggled to find suppliers willing to deliver to them.

While ministers are confident that Keir Starmer’s refusal to support the initial attack on Iran has the broad support of the public, they are deeply wary about the impact of higher fuel and petrol prices, particularly if the conflict drags on.

Set up to run from 1 April, the crisis and resilience fund gives English councils money to support communities, particularly with financial pressures. It has a funding of £1bn a year for an initial three-year period.

A Treasury source said: “Families who rely on heating oil can’t spread the cost – when the tank’s empty, you have to find hundreds of pounds upfront. That’s why the chancellor is providing targeted help for low‑income and vulnerable households across the UK.”

The armed suspect who drove a vehicle into the hallway of a large Michigan synagogue complex that includes a school had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon just last week, an official said on Friday.

A potential mass-casualty event was averted when security guards already in place at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township on the outskirts of Detroit killed the driver before any harm could come to the synagogue’s staff, teachers and 140 children at the early childhood center there on Thursday afternoon.

The suspect was later named by the authorities as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, who was born in Lebanon and had become a naturalized US citizen.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is leading the investigation, described the attack on one of the nation’s largest Reform synagogues as an act of violence targeting the Jewish community.

Photographs of an FBI raid on Ghazali’s reported residence in Dearborn Heights, a Detroit suburb with a large Lebanese community, appeared on the website of the New York Post on Friday.

Ghazali came to the US in 2011 on a family-related visa as the spouse of a US citizen and was granted US citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The New York Times reported Friday that Ghazali had a job at Hamido, a Mediterranean food restaurant in Dearborn Heights, but had been missing from work in recent weeks, a colleague said.

“He’s the face of the restaurant,” Rami Achkar, a regular diner, told the newspaper. “I’ve known him for years.”

An Israeli airstrike killed four people in the eastern Lebanon town of Mashgharah on 5 March, Lebanon’s state agency and the Lebanese Health Ministry reported. A woman was also wounded.

Coinciding with US and Israeli strikes on Iran that began late last month, Israel also once again began attacking its neighbor Lebanon in an effort to eradicate the Iran-backed Hezbollah militancy.

The bombardment of Lebanon, which is continuing, marked a significant escalation in Israel’s growing offensive there, which began after Hezbollah fired missiles and drones into Israel in early March in retaliation for the attacks on Iran, as the conflict has mounted and widened rapidly.

A local official in Mashgharah, in central Lebanon, told the Associated Press on Friday that Ghazali’s two brothers and a niece and nephew were killed at their home in the 5 March airstrike just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The official, who requested anonymity because he could not publicly discuss details of the airstrike, told the AP that Kassim and Ibrahim Ghazali were killed, along with Ibrahim Ghazali’s children, Ali and Fatima. Ibrahim Ghazali’s wife was seriously wounded and remains in the hospital, the official said.

The official said that Kassim Ghazali was a well-known soccer coach and personal trainer while Ibrahim was a school bus driver in the village. The official added that Ayman Ghazali’s father was in the US and returned to Lebanon recently.

Iskander Barakeh, the mayor of Mashgharah, a religiously and politically diverse town of about 25,000 in the Bekaa valley, told the Guardian he did not know why the Ghazali residence was targeted.

“I asked a lot but no one said anything. He wasn’t affiliated with any party,” Barakeh said.

The mayor added that two multi-apartment blocks in the town were hit, as well as a community center, a school that was damaged indirectly, and a Christian cemetery.

“In Masghara you can consider it like Lebanon itself. Among Christians you have Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Protestants, Maronites and Latins,” he said.

“Among the Muslim groups you have Shia, Druze, Sunnis. As for political parties, everything exists there, every party in the world is represented.”

Thursday’s incident at the Michigan synagogue resulted in the vehicle driven by the suspect catching on fire and black smoke could be seen billowing from the building.

One security officer was hit by the vehicle and knocked unconscious but did not suffer life-threatening injuries, the local Oakland county sheriff, Mike Bouchard said. And 30 law enforcement officers were treated for smoke inhalation.

Cassi Cohen, director of strategic development at Temple Israel, was in the hallway where the crash happened. She described hearing a loud bang and said she grabbed a few staff members, ran into her office and locked the door.

“When I heard the crash, I knew it was bad,” Cohen said.

She said the crash happened near a classroom and, in addition to the children, there were also more than 30 staff members in the synagogue.

Rabbi Arianna Gordon, from Temple Israel, thanked the security team, law enforcement and early childhood teachers for getting the children out safely and reunited with their parents amid the chaos and fear.

About a dozen parents sprinted to get their children soon after authorities cleared the building. Other families were reunited at a nearby Jewish Community Center.

Allison Jacobs, whose 18-month-old daughter is enrolled in Temple Israel’s day care, said she got a message from a teacher saying the children were okay even before she knew what happened.

“There are no words. I was in complete and utter shock,” she said.

Synagogues around the world have been on edge and further ramping up security since the US and Israel launched a war with Iran with missile strikes on 28 February.

Donald Trump said on Thursday: “It’s incredible that things like this happen” and called the Michigan attack a “terrible thing”.

However, Steven Ingber, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, said: “I’d love to say that I’m shocked, that I’m surprised, but I’m not.”

Oakland county is Michigan’s second-largest county with roughly 1.3m people. The majority of Detroit-area Jewish residents live there. Temple Israel has 12,000 members, according to its website.

At a similar time to the attack on the synagogue, a gunman killed one and injured two in a shooting at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

That incident could also have resulted in more carnage after the suspect opened fire in a classroom of students doing military training with the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a college-based program, but he was subdued and killed by some of the students.

The suspect was later identified by authorities as Mohamed Jalloh, a former member of the army national guard who pleaded guilty in 2016 to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State. The authorities said he shouted the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar”, meaning Allah is the greatest, or God is great and the FBI is investigating the shooting as an alleged act of terrorism.