Canada 'honour' killings: Shafia family found guilty
 

Three members of an Afghan immigrant family in Canada have been convicted of murdering four female relatives in a so-called "honour" killing.

The bodies - three teenage girls and their father's first wife - were found in a car submerged in a canal in the city of Kingston, Ontario, in 2009.

The girls' father, brother and mother will serve at least 25 years in prison.

Prosecutors said the father was angered that his two eldest daughters wanted boyfriends, in defiance of his values.

The court heard how Mohammad Shafia had become increasingly angry and upset with his three teenage daughters for having secret relationships with boys and wearing revealing clothes.

'Twisted notion of honour'

The prosecution relied heavily on wiretap recordings that revealed the level of Shafia's anger and comments in which he referred to his dead daughters as *****s.

"The apparent reason behind these cold shameful murders was that four (victims) offended your twisted notion of honour," the judge, Justice Robert Maranger, told Shafia and his two co-accused, his wife Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed.

The BBC's Lee Carter, in Toronto, says the three-month trial riveted the country.

After the verdict was read out, Mohammad Shafia, speaking through a translator, said, "We are not criminals, we are not murderers, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust.''

The bodies of sisters Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia, aged 19, 17 and 13, were found along with the body of their father's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, in the Rideau Canal in June 2009.

They had been on a visit to Niagara Falls and were returning home to Montreal when they stopped for the night near Kingston.

The prosecution alleged Mohammed, Tooba and Hamed drowned their four victims, placed their bodies in the car and then pushed it into the canal with the family's other car.

The court heard the girls lived in an abusive home and received frequent death threats, in part over the fact that the two eldest daughters had boyfriends without their father's approval.

The jury was told the decision to murder the four women was taken after 19-year-old Zainab took refuge in a shelter, defying her male relatives.

The defence said their deaths were the result of a joyride gone wrong after Zainab took the wheel

Ms Mohammad, 52, wanted a divorce and supported the girls' wish to live according to Western norms.

The prosecution presented wiretap evidence, including one conversation where Mohammad Shafia said his daughters "betrayed us immensely."

In other recordings, he was heard calling them treacherous and *****s and calling on the devil to defecate on their graves.

The 10-member Shafia family left Afghanistan in 1992. They came to Canada in 2007, having previously lived in Australia, Pakistan and Dubai.

Shafia married Tooba Yahya because his first wife was unable to have children.

She was living with Shafia and Yahya at the time of her murder. The polygamous relationship, if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.

Those poor women:(. Hope the 3 people convicted rot in prison!:mad:

Video in this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16783354

It's too bad Canada doesn't have the death penalty, cause i think these guys sound like PRIME CANDIDATES.

The death penalty is an appalling thing. When the state has the right to murder it's citizens, then no good can come from that. Nobody should ever be killed at the hand of the government.

is one view that not many people support

Then people need to research it a little more. The government should have no powers to commit murder on it's citizens.

Think about that for a second. An eye for an eye belongs in bronze age culture, not in modern society.

The death penalty is not the government "committing murder", it's protecting society from dangerous monsters. That's the government's job, to protect innocent people. That;'s the whole point of having a criminal justice system. What about the rights of society to not be murdered by psychopaths like these people?

If these people are willing to kill their own family members in the name of Islam, it's not a stretch to imagine that they'd do terrorist attacks next against people they don't even know.

So what? Bronze also belongs in the bronze age, that doesn't mean we should ban bronze.

judge people on the content of their character. i think someone famous said that... ;)

It is murder, it's just murder that is in retribution. As an American, you should know that the death penalty doesn't work. It's not a successful deterrent, in any way, shape or form.

The leap from honour killings to terrorism is vast. Although to the bigoted mind, it probably isn't. The rights of society are protected by locking away the offender, indefinitely.

Murder, is murder, is murder.

I'm no fan of Islam, believe me, but your logic is naive at best, and borderline racist at worst.

It was a reference to the development of society. I'd hope that we have progressed past bronzed-aged morality, or should we push for the re-introduction of human sacrifices, too?

So you think it's more humane to lock someone up for life? to me that seems more cruel. IF a "life sentence, really means a LIFE SENTENCE" I know if i was going to be locked up forever, i'd prefer the death penalty. But then again a "life sentence" in Canada doesn't really mean LIFE, does it? and that's the problem.

I think it is more humane that the state doesn't commit murder of it's own citizens, yes. You may personally prefer the death penalty, as it's the easy thing to say, but how many people in prison till they die, actually commit suicide?

Life is more precious than we believe it to be on the face of it.

and Freedom is more precious aswell.

Freedom is more precious than life? Without life there is nothingness, and freedom doesn't exist.

i never said life was more precious than freedom. i was responding to this quote that you said "Life is more precious than we believe it to be on the face of it."

And i was simply saying that Freedom is ALSO more precious than we believe, which is why i was saying being locked up for life is very much a very cruel thing. Knowing you will be in prison until you die is cruelty i believe. and the longer you live, the more cruel it becomes.

A couple of posts up, you wanted society protecting from murderers, by murdering them back. Now you are saying it is inhumane to lock up prisoners until they die in order to protect society.

That logic seems flawed and contradictory to me.

well a life sentence is the same as the death penalty isn't it? What is more inhumane, keeping someone alive with no hope or freedom? or injecting them in the death penalty?

I know which i'd prefer.

Murder is more inhumane than imprisonment. People still have a worth, even if they will spend their lives behind bars.

The death sentence is not the same as a life behind bars.

so why do we kill animals then if we know they are going to die without being free. because we know di=ying is more humane than losing freedom.

if you had a dog that was going to be in pain for 10 years, would you put it down i would.

Because as a species, we have changed the environment of most animals on the planet, so we've taken on that responsibility.

The freedom of animals, isn't as easily defined. For example, if you release a pride of zoo lions into the wild, they wouldn't last 5 minutes.

We view animals and our species very differently. Would you murder your child if you knew he had a incurable disease that would give him about 10 more years of life?

all animals change their environment to suit themselves. beavers built damns, moles dig tunnels, we are no different.

if my child was suffering, yes, i'd help him/her die. And i'd want my children to do the same for me, if it came to it.