Muslim man, Asadullah
Khan, strangled his own 19-year-old daughter to
death with his bare hands after learning from police she had been caught
shoplifting condoms to have sex with her forbidden boyfriend. He and
his wife Shazia then dressed the dead girl named Lareeb (left), a dental
technician, in her clothes, wheeled her in a wheelchair from their
high-rise apartment to the
family car, drove to a secluded embankment in their home city of
Darmstadt in Germany, and tipped the corpse down it.
Khan, 51, with tears streaming down his face, admitted the killing because in
his eyes she had brought 'dishonour' on the family with her love for a
boy he didn't approve of. He and his wife were wed in an arranged
marriage and he wanted the same for her.
Khan and his
wife, originally from Pakistan, are on trial for murder at the State
Court in Darmstadt. Shazia, 41, described how she was a downtrodden
woman, totally in the thrall of her husband, and unable to save her
daughter.
The court heard how the parents sent Lareeb's sister Nida, 14, to a relative on the evening of the murder in January this year.
Nida gave evidence against both her parents, saying her mother was as strict as their father, often striking both of them.
The mother held out her arms to Nida when she appeared in court on Friday but Nida refused to acknowledge her.
Nida said: 'My Mama was not suppressed, she could do what she wanted. She used to hit me with a stick.
'We were never allowed to talk about her boyfriend. My father used to say my sister should be forcibly married in Pakistan.'
The court heard Nida is now in therapy and has nothing more to do with her parents.
Shazia
said that on the night of the murder Lareeb had quarelled again with
her father and hit him. He later crept into her room as she slept, knelt
astride her and strangled her.
'I
couldn't stop him,' the mother said in a statement read by her lawyer.
'I have rheumatism and didn't have the strength to fight him off. I
wanted to scream, but I couldn't.
'Lareeb
stayed away from the home for several nights in a row and stopped
wearing the headscarf. One day we received a letter from the police
saying she had been caught trying to steal condoms.
'At this point it became clear that there was sexual contact. When I showed the letter to my husband he snapped.'
Killer Asadullah, who speaks no German, said he 'loved' his daughter.
The trial continues.
No comments:
Write comments