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UK: The young Kurdish wife 'murdered for
falling in love with another man'
14.3.2007
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March 14, 2007
London, A married Muslim woman allegedly
murdered by her father and uncle for having an
affair chillingly foretold her death, a jury heard
yesterday.
Giving evidence from beyond the grave, Banaz Mahmod
told in a video message how she was "really scared"
of her father after she broke her arranged marriage.
And less than a month before her death - allegedly
in a so-called 'honour killing' - the 20-year-old
warned police that her family was plotting to murder
her, the Old Bailey was told.
Mrs Mahmod, an Iraqi Kurd from Kurdistan region
whose family were granted asylum in England when she
was ten, was garroted with a shoelace, almost
certainly in her own home, before her body was
stuffed in a suitcase and buried in a back garden,
the jury was told.
The killing was ordered by her uncle Ari Agha, 50,
at a family meeting, endorsed by her father Mahmod
Mahmod, 52, and carried out with assistance of their
fellow Kurd Mohamad Hama, who has pleaded guilty to
Banaz's murder, the court heard.
Less than a month before her death in January last
year, Banaz had told the police and others that her
father and uncle were plotting her murder, and two
days before she was killed the family staged a
failed kidnap of her boyfriend Rahmat Suleimani, it
was claimed.
According to the prosecution, Hama, 30, from West
Norwood, South London, told Suleimani: "We're going
to kill you and Banaz, because we're Muslim and
Kurdish. We're not like the English where you can be
boyfriend and girlfriend. We're going to leave now
but we'll be back again." |
Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha, Found dead The daughter,
who had left her husband
The father- Mahmod Mahmod, who denies murder |
And yesterday in a video recorded on a mobile phone,
Banaz told how on New Year's Eve 2005 her father
lured her to her grandmother's house and plied her
with brandy before she fled. Her father had made her
carry a suitcase into the house, she said.
Prosecutor Victor Temple QC told the court that the
New Year's Eve incident detailed by Mrs Mahmod in
the video "had all the hallmarks of an early attempt
to kill her".
Mahmod and his brother Agha, both of Mitcham, South
London, deny murder. Agha and another man, Darbaz
Rasull, 24, of Hounslow, West London, also deny
conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Mr Temple told the jury: "The Kurdish community in
South London is tight-knit. In some sections of the
community the family name subjugates all else. In
their eyes, should the family be shamed, retribution
should follow.
"If the family member is a woman, who in any view
are not treated as equal, the retribution often
encompasses the ultimate penalty - death. And so it
is in this case."
He said that Banaz had been 17 when she married Ali
Homar, also a Kurd, then 28, and that the marriage
had been an unhappy one in which he had been violent
towards her.
In the autumn of 2005, she left him and returned to
her family home.
Her father was angry to discover she had fallen in
love with Mr Suleimani, an Iranian Kurd living in
South London. He was not a close relative, nor a
strict Muslim.
In December 2005 a family meeting was called at
Agha's home. It was decreed Banaz and Mr Suleimani
should be killed, said Mr Temple.
Soon after she was said to have been lured to her
grandmother's house on the pretext of meeting her
estranged husband to discuss a divorce.
Instead, Banaz said in a mobile phone video
recording made by Mr Suleimani at St George's
Hospital in Tooting, her father gave her a bottle of
brandy.
She said: "My dad said, 'From 3.30 to 4pm you have
to drink half the bottle'. He said, 'Come and sit on
the floor' and I did so."
At one point, Banaz said, her father left the room -
and returned, wearing gloves.
She dashed into the garden, smashing a neighbour's
window and cutting both wrists in the process. She
was taken to the hospital.
Three weeks later, said the prosecutor, Mr Suleimani
was lured to a house in Hounslow but escaped.
Two days later, Banaz went missing. Her body was
found in Birmingham in April.
The trial continues.
thisislondon co.uk
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