http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18506251
Quote:
A sister of Shafilea Ahmed has admitted in court to making silent phone calls to a trial witness.
But Mevish Ahmed denied she was trying to intimidate her friend Shahin Munir, to whom the prosecution say she wrote letters about Shafilea's death.
Ms Ahmed, 21, told Chester Crown Court the silent calls last week were a joke.
Speaking on the second day of her evidence, Ms Ahmed said she did not regret writing letters that had only recently been shown to police by Ms Munir which the prosecution says were "letters that you wrote to your friend about your sister's death".
"It's just a story, now it's being taken out of context," she said.
Continuing her evidence, Ms Ahmed denied she was covering up for her parents.
She added: "If they'd done something wrong I wouldn't just sit there and cover for them."
Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, told the court of an incident in April 2009 when the witness was arrested on suspicion of stealing money from the family home.
He said: "You spoke to Shahin and told her that afterwards you were beaten by your mother and your father, thrown on the floor and they said that you should go to Pakistan right now and talked about finishing you and threatened to kill you."
Miss Ahmed said: "No, I fell outside the house."
The prosecution alleges Miss Ahmed fell out with her parents but returned home after they promised to withdraw the theft allegation.
Mr Edis said: "You had been arrested and investigated for the theft of £600 from your own house and you said (to Ms Munir), 'I'm going back home, if anything happens to me give police the diary'."
Ms Ahmed replied: "I don't recall that at all."
At the hearing on Monday, Ms Ahmed was asked about a telephone call made to Ms Munir during the second week of her parents' trial, in which the prosecution alleged her friend had apologised for handing documents to the police.
Ms Ahmed initially denied any memory of the call, but then said she had spoken to Ms Munir. She also denied that, during the call, she had "aggressively threatened" her friend and demanded the handing over of diary notes made after a conversation about Shafilea's death in a park in 2008.
Ms Ahmed has told the jury she had last seen Shafilea on the evening of 11 September 2003.
Mevish Ahmed is the second of Shafilea Ahmed's sisters to have appeared in court. *
Previously, Alesha Ahmed claimed she saw her parents suffocate Shafilea with a plastic bag.
The trial continues.
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* Mevish is also the second of Shafilea Ahmed's sisters to have stolen from the family home.
If the report is indicative of court proceedings then Mevish is obviously lying and, presumably, open to a charge of trying to pervert the course of justice .....
