Thread: Family convicted in Canada 'honor murders'

Family convicted in Canada 'honor murders'

By Paula Newton, CNN
updated 3:25 PM EST, Sun January 29, 2012

Kingston, Ontario (CNN) -- A Canadian jury Sunday convicted three members of a family of Afghan immigrants of the "honor" murders of four female relatives whose bodies were found in an Ontario canal.

Mohammed Shafia, 58; his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42; and their son, Hamed, 21, were found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Shafia's three teenage daughters and his first wife in his polygamous marriage. Sunday's verdicts followed a three-month trial, in which jurors heard wiretaps of Shafia referring to his daughters as "whores" and ranting about their behavior.

"This is a good day for Canadian justice. Our democratic society protects the rights of all," Gerard Laarhuis, the chief prosecutor in the case, told reporters outside the courthouse in Kingston. "It's a very bad day, because this jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family."

At least one Shafia family supporter interrupted Laarhuis with shouts of "lies" and called the verdict a "miscarriage of justice." But others cheered the verdict as Laarhuis continued.

The three Shafia sisters -- Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13 -- were found dead inside a car that plunged into the Rideau Canal in Kingston on June 30, 2009. Shafia's first wife, 50-year-old Rona Amir Mohammad, also died.

The verdicts came on the second day of deliberations for a seven-woman, five-man jury in Kingston, about 280 km (175 miles) west of the family's home in Montreal.

Prosecutors said the girls' father, mother and brother all plotted to kill the four women in an "honor" murder. Investigators claimed that hours of wiretapped conversations reveal a premeditated plan to punish rebellious, Westernized daughters and their permissive advocate, Rona.

Shafia and Yahya admitted on the stand that they were upset with Zainab for running off to marry a Pakistani man they hated, that Sahar wore revealing clothes and had secret boyfriends, and Geeti was failing in school and calling social workers to get her out of a home in turmoil.

'No faith on earth justifies this'
Prosecutors argued that under instructions from his father, Hamed Shafia used the family Lexus to ram the other family car carrying the women into the canal. The shattered headlight on the Lexus, they claim, matches the damage on the rear bumper of the family Nissan in which the women were found dead.

Investigators also believed the victims might have died before they hit the water, because they were unable to escape despite their seat belts being unbuckled and the car being submerged in just 7 feet of water.

In the three-month-long trial, Shafia testified, "My children did a lot of cruelty toward me," as he wept openly on the stand. He went on to say he believed his children "betrayed" him by dating and he did not hide his anger, saying a father would never expect that kind of behavior from this daughters.

In taking the stand, Shafia swore to tell the truth on the Quran and he again invoked the holy book to say Islam does not condone killing people to preserve a family's honor.

In a direct response to a question from prosecutor Laurie Lacelle, Shafia said, "To kill someone, you can't regain your respect and honor. Respected lady, you should know that. In our religion, a person who kills his wife or daughter, there is nothing more dishonorable. How is it possible that someone would do that to their children, respected lady?"

"You might do it," Lacelle calmly replied, "if you thought they were whores." Shafia had used that term in a conversation captured by wiretaps.

Investigators played hours of the wiretap recordings in court, alleging many conversations involving the three suspects prove they were plotting murder. In some of the most shocking conversations, Shafia launched into a rant about his daughters' behavior.

"I say to myself, 'You did well. Would they come back to life a hundred times, you should so the same again,'" he says. And in another played in court and translated from the Afghan language Dari, he says, "May the devil defecate on their graves! This is what a daughter should be? Would a daughter be such a whore?"

Shafia and his lawyers tried to explain that his shocking words are traditional expressions in Dari that should not be translated literally. But the jury also heard from an expert witness on honor murders -- a term CNN is using in the interest of clarity rather than the more common "honor killings" because the latter phrase does not properly describe the alleged crime.

That witness, University of Toronto professor Shahrzad Mojab, said that in some families, honor is worth more than life.

In an interview with CNN, Mojab said that many times, honor crimes are calculated acts that involve more than one family member.

"There is a very important difference between honor killing and violence against women in the form of domestic violence. It is plotted, it is premeditated." Mojab said.

"What we need to understand is that the male power and the male desire for the control of the woman's body and the woman's sexuality -- the honor resides in that sort of understanding and the ownership of women's body and sexuality," he said. "So when that is being presented in a way that is not acceptable to the social norm, then the only way the honor can be restored is by purifying that. And the purification is through blood."

Family convicted in Canada 'honor murders' - CNN.com

This thinking is a sick as it gets. I cannot understand this lack of love they have for each other.

Ron Graham

“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” Matthew 24:12. Jesus, speaking to four of His disciples about the times just before His Second Advent, tells them that because sin will be so rampant, so commonplace in the last days that the love people once had for one another will become, for the most part, nonexistent. The Greek word “polys” istranslated into our English word as “many”. It’s used in numerous places throughout the New Testament denoting multitudes, great and very significant numbers. Imagine, if you can, a world made up of people thoroughly devoid of “love” for their fellow man.

This quote from Ron Grahams explanation, is such a good exmaple of this. I cannot imagine, I have two daughters, and love them even if they had done something I was against.

I remember this very very well, I'm happy with the verdict. The bad thing is that even if they get "life", in Canada "life" = 20 years.

Shafia family all found guilty of first-degree murder in 'honour killings'

timothy appleby
Kingston, Ont.— Globe and Mail Update
Published Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012 1:11PM EST
Last updated Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012 6:18PM EST

The murder trial of three Afghan-Canadians accused of drowning four relatives in a so-called “honour killing” came to a cathartic end Sunday afternoon as the defendants were convicted on all charges.

Before the trio were led away in handcuffs and shackles to begin automatic sentences of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for 25 years, each proclaimed their innocence, and they were visibly upset.

Video

Court hears closing arguments in Shafia trial

Mr. Justice Robert Maranger of Superior Court was unmoved.

Their crimes stemmed from “a sick notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society,” he told the packed courtroom.

“You have each been convicted of the planned and deliberate murder of four members of your family,” the trial judge said, citing a verdict that was “clearly supported by the evidence presented at this trial.

“It is difficult to conceive of a more despicable, more heinous crime. The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour, a notion of honour that is founded upon the domination and control of women.”

Staring hard at the defendants, the judge said:

“There is nothing more honourless than the deliberate murder of, in the case of Mohammad Shafia, three of his daughters and his wife, in the case of Tooba Yahya, three of her daughters and a stepmother to all her children, in the case of Hamed Shafia, three of his sisters and a mother.”

Half an hour later, a large crowd gathered under a cold sun to watch as businessman Mohammad Shafia, 59, his second wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, and their eldest son, Hamed, 21, were for the last time taken away in a police van. Boos rang out as they were led from the courthouse.

The verdict was reached shortly after 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon and delivered about an hour later.

In all, the seven-woman, five-man jury had deliberated just over 15 hours, spread over two days, sequestered on the second floor of the historic Frontenac County Court House in downtown Kingston.‬

After the proceedings ended, defence lawyer David Crowe said he was “disappointed” with the outcome and there would be an appeal.

Right to the end, the killers maintained they were not guilty.

“We are not criminals, we are not murderers, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust,” Mr. Shafia said in Dari, his words relayed through a translator.

“Your honourable justice, this is not just,” his wife said through tears. “I am not a murderer, and I am a mother – a mother.”

Their son spoke in English: “Sir, I did not drown my sisters anywhere,” he said.

Mr. Shafia, Ms. Yahya and Hamed Shafia were convicted of murdering sisters Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia, aged 19, 17 and 13, whose bodies were found in a submerged car at a Rideau Canal lock, just east of Kingston, in June, 2009.‬

The fourth person in the vehicle was Mr. Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 53, who had entered Canada illegally, posing as his cousin, but who in fact was part of a polygamous marriage and who by every indication had desperately wanted to escape from it.

The trial attracted enormous attention, the chief reason being that in the history of Canada, and probably every other Western country, it was unique.‬

There have been other murder charges involving so-called “honour killings” – homicides of women slain out of a perverse desire to “purify” families of disgrace created by supposedly immoral conduct. But not on this scale, and not involving parents who were willing to wipe out half their family for the sake of their honour, and then lie about it.‬

Outside court, lead prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis said the guilty verdicts reflected Canadian values that he hoped would resonate.

“This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy,” Mr. Laarhuis said, amid cheers of approval from spectators.

Staff-Sgt. Chris Scott, who headed the widely praised Kingston Police investigation, said the prosecutors and court process had allowed the dead women to finally be heard.

“They gave these victims a voice when they had none,” he said.

The 10-member family – one husband, two wives, seven children who were all Ms. Yahya's progeny – settled in Montreal in 2007 after fleeing Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in 1992 and spending years in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

What linked the four victims, co-prosecutor Laurie Lacelle told the jury in her closing arguments, was their shared desire to break away from the constraints of the oppressive Shafia household, ruled with a rod of iron by Mr. Shafia, the ill-tempered, often violent family patriarch.

The defendants pleaded not guilty to what the prosecution contended was a carefully planned but clumsily executed quadruple murder, disguised as an accident, committed chiefly to cleanse the Shafia name and reputation of shame brought about by the victims’ rebellious conduct, particularly Zainab’s and Sahar’s interest in boys and dating.

‪The trial began Oct. 20 and in its final weeks it drew big crowds, often lining up well ahead of time for a spot in the 150-seat courtroom.

It was also expensive. A police source directly involved in the case estimated the final tab will run into millions of dollars.‬

Among the regulars was Kingston resident Barb Jagger, 52, who for a couple of weeks shared a cell with Ms. Yahya in the segregation block of Quinte Detention Centre, west of Kingston.

She recalls her cellmate as quiet, pleasant and evidently deeply religious. She would pray five times a day, Ms. Jagger said, and often read the Koran.

Ms. Yahya denied murdering anybody, Ms. Jagger said.

“She looked me in the eyes, she had tears streaming down her face, and she said to me: 'Barb, I didn't bring seven children into this world just to kill them.'"

Shafia family all found guilty of first-degree murder in 'honour killings' - The Globe and Mail

each proclaimed their innocence, and they were visibly upset.

Of course they did...they expected to come here and live as they always have, and this way of doing things was so much a part of that way of life, that they are convinced they are not murderers because in their society it would not have been murder, and they feel inccoent because their warped societal rules taught them they were innocent, righteous, and the ones they killed for the sake of their honor were the guilty.

However, look at what we have seen with illegal immigration. It is similar, people come here from a third world nation where things can be vastly different, and we deal with crime levels, and other issues that you would not from immgrants from nations where their culture and standards are like ours. Bring in people from third world nations that are also fanatical in their beliefs, and you will wind up with people within our nations who believe they can mete out their own cultural/religious justice to those they do not think are living up to the standards they have within their religion...

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f19/shafia-tria...ree-mu-249688/

Deportation possible for 'honour killers'

By Daniel Proussalidis, Parliamentary Bureau
Last Updated: January 30, 2012 6:47pm

OTTAWA -- As polygamist Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya and their son, Hamed, begin life sentences in the "honour killings" of Shafia's three teenaged daughters and his other wife, the couple could face deportation.

"Perhaps we could go back, re-open the case, and look at it in terms of the polygamy because (Shafia) was a polygamist when he came in (to Canada)," said Sandra Zisckind, Sun News Network's legal analyst.

Typically, a polygamous immigrant entering Canada has to lie on an immigration application, presenting additional wives as cousins or aunts, to get everyone into the country.

No such allegations have been proven in Shafia's case.

But Rick Dykstra, the parliamentary secretary to the federal immigration minister, says if authorities prove someone lied to get into Canada, it's serious business.

"You risk losing your citizenship; you risk losing your permanent residency status; and you risk being deported from the country," Dykstra said.

Michael Greene, a Calgary immigration lawyer, says there's no rush for the government to consider deporting Shafia and his wife to their native Afghanistan, since both are in prison for 25 years without chance of parole.

"The policy of our government for many years now has been that they will not remove a person before their parole eligibility, so they've got 25 years to think about it," Greene said. "We tend to extract our pound of flesh before we ship them off."

Greene says immigration proceedings can start early so that removals can happen as soon as a criminal is eligible for parole.

Deportation possible for 'honour killers' | Canada | News | London Free Press

I never was able to find out, but did they convict solely on the basis of the secret recordings, or was there physical evidence too?

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f19/afghan-immi...g-four-249797/