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Mohammad Shafia, center, Tooba Yahya, and Hamed Shafia, left, arrive at the Frontenac County courthouse in Kingston, Ontario, on Sunday.​

[...]
After the jury returned the verdicts, Mohammad Shafia, speaking through a translator, said, "We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust."

His weeping wife, Tooba, also declared the verdict unjust, saying, "I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother."

Their son, Hamed, speaking in English said, "I did not drown my sisters anywhere."

But Judge Robert Maranger was unmoved, saying the evidence clearly supported their conviction for "the planned and deliberate murder of four members of your family."


"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 honor ... that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

Outside court, prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis said the verdict is a reflection of Canadian values that he hopes will 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," Laarhuis said to cheers of approval from onlookers.
[...]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46183299/ns/world_news-americas/
 
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It's a cycle that sadly keeps repeating itself. For both the women that are subjected to it and have no escape..and for the men like their brother,who are basically brainwashed from an early age that it's okay to kill your female relatives if they dare to show independence.
 
Finally heard today little bits and pieces on tv of that Christie Blatcford columnist
They strongly believe the bruising is from being beaten unconcious
but to keep it where they would be hidden(back of head) I dont think they are smart enough
Hoping more on that will come out and the 1 didnt have that bruising on her head anywhere
 
I say appeal away,spend all their money on defense and send them back on the boat broke in 25 years,hope they make them pay for their prison stay too
They have strarted that in some cases/areas
I want them penniless by the time they are deported

Family plans to appeal convictions in 'honor' murders
Kingston, Ontario (CNN) -- Three members of an Afghan immigrant family, who were found guilty of murder in what the judge called "a completely twisted concept of honor," intend to appeal their convictions.
[...]
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.
[...]
A lawyer for the son, Hamed, told the Canadian Press news agency his client and the client's parents will file an appeal, but he did not say when.

In announcing the verdict, Judge Robert Maranger told the court it was "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 twisted notion of honor, a notion of honor that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honor that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

Outside the courtroom, Gerard Laarhuis, the chief prosecutor in the case, called it a "good day for Canadian justice."
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.
[..]
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/30/world/americas/canada-honor-murder/index.html?hpt=ju_c1
 
Graeme Hamilton: Typically immigrants arrive in a new land prepared to make sacrifices for the sake of their children. Mohammad Shafia, a native of Afghanistan, came to Canada in 2007 a wealthy man intent on imprisoning his daughters in an authoritarian household. And when they took steps to break free, a jury found Sunday, he murdered three of them along with his first wife.

A relative of Shafia’s second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, said in an interview Sunday it quickly became apparent after the Shafia family immigrated to Montreal that the patriarch had no interest in adapting to his new surroundings. (Yahya and the couple’s eldest son, Hamed, were also found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths.)
Reza Hyderi, Yahya’s first cousin, said the Shafia family was invited to his sister’s wedding in the summer of 2007. It was to be an exciting event for the Shafia children, a chance to meet their cousins, and the girls bought new dresses.

“On the day of the wedding they never showed up, and after, I heard that the father got upset because the girls’ dresses had no sleeves,â€￾ Mr. Hyderi said. “He took a pair of scissors and cut up all the clothes. He was so obsessed, so closed-minded.â€￾

The roots of the obsession stretch back to Shafia’s native Afghanistan, where he was born in 1952. After his mother divorced his father and remarried,She had the freedom to do that back then? he did not get past Grade 8 in school, according to Wali Abdali, the brother of Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad.
It is not clear how Shafia amassed his fortune, but he was already rich by the age of 40. The court heard that when he left Afghanistan in 1992, he lost $200,000 in the transfer of $1.5-million worth of “goodsâ€￾ to Pakistan. Mr. Hyderi said he heard that Shafia at one point held a government posting in Kabul and would supplement his income by demanding bribes from the families of prisoners, promising to arrange their release. He said he is skeptical that Shafia could have become a multi-millionaire by selling electronics in war-torn Afghanistan and reselling damaged cars, as he would do later on. “This guy, if it’s so easy for him to kill three of his children, he could do anything,â€￾ Mr. Hyderi said.

They spent a year in Australia, but Shafia did not appreciate the local Afghan women’s support group reaching out to his wives, according to Mr. Hyderi. After another stint in Dubai, he decided to make the move to Canada where Yahya had a large extended family. The wealthy Shafia was welcomed under Quebec’s investor immigrant program, and promptly bought a $2-million shopping mall in the suburb of Laval, paying $1.6-million of it in cash.

There was one hitch with the move to Canada. Since polygamy is outlawed, they had to lie about the status of Ms. Mohammad. She initially stayed behind with relatives in France, and Mr. Abdali said he pleaded with her not to go to Canada.

Sahar Shafia, left, Zainab, top, and Geeti
“But she said no, because of the children. She raised those children. She was their true mother,â€￾ he said. “She could not bear to be separated from the children, because she knew that if she wasn’t there, the father was a bit strict, a bit cruel.â€￾ Mr. Abdali said he tried to keep his nose out of Shafia’s business but one conclusion was unavoidable. “He was not religious as some have said. I never saw him do prayer. But he was a strict man who did not want anyone looking at his wife.â€￾ Ms. Mohammed left France and was granted entry to Canada as a cousin of Shafia
.
Once in Canada, the climate in the household deteriorated quickly, as Shafia felt his iron grip slipping. Mr. Hyderi, 31, who immigrated to Canada in 2000, said the message was clear that Shafia expected total control over his children. He was insulted to hear that Shafia did not even want his girls mingling with their male cousins: “He said it was male cousins who open the door for female cousins to be prostitutes.â€￾ The first time he met Zainab at a family picnic, she was wearing a hijab and he avoided even shaking hands when he was introduced. “Normally I hug my cousins, and kiss them on the cheeks,â€￾ he said. Taking a hint, he had little contact with the Shafias, even though they lived nearby.

Ms. Mohammad also found herself under threat. Mr. Abdali said members of Yahya’s family made life miserable for his sister in Montreal, and an effort was underway to send her back to Afghanistan. He told her to go to the police if they tried to have her sent back, but she said she could not. “She was afraid,â€￾ he said. “She had threats that if she went to the police, we will kill you.â€￾

Shafia meanwhile was frequently travelling to Asia and the Middle East and making little mark in Montreal. Qais Hamidi, a prominent member of Quebec’s Afghan community, said he knows almost all the Afghans in Montreal, but the first time he saw Shafia was at the funeral for the drowning victims. (At that point, the deaths were being treated as an accident.)

Hasibullah Fazel, an administrator with Maison Afghan-Canadienne, which offer support to new arrivals, said he met Shafia a couple of times but never sensed anything was amiss. “They were a bit reserved, conservative people because they came from Dubai,â€￾ he said. Shafia was Muslim but not particularly religious, he said; he even remembers Shafia mocking clerics as insincere.

In the spring of 2009, Mr. Hyderi learned that Zainab was to marry her boyfriend, who was not an Afghan. After talking to Zainab, he could sense the marriage was a desperate move to escape her father’s control. He spoke to Yahya and offered to intervene with Shafia, who was away on business in Dubai, to make Zainab’s life easier.

Yahya insisted that he butt out: “She said, ‘You don’t know Shafia. He’s very mean. He’s very selfish, and I’m afraid he’s going to come home from Dubai, and he’s going to hit her, or he’s going to make Hamed kill her.’ I said, ‘Tooba, what are you talking about. No father would do that.’ â€￾

The marriage to the boyfriend was annulled after one day, and another plan was hatched for Zainab to marry Mr. Hyderi’s younger brother. But before that could happen, the Shafias set off on a summer road trip. Mr. Hyderi’s father, Latif, who testified for the Crown during the trial, ran into the family at a fruit store as they were preparing to leave. He reported back that he sensed something unusual on meeting Shafia. Shafia had shaken his hand extremely hard and said, “You say women belong to others, but that’s not true.â€￾ The younger Mr. Hyderi was alarmed by the cryptic message and spoke to his brother. “I told him to tell Zainab, whatever she did, not to get on a plane. The worst we could think of was he was going to send her back to Dubai.â€￾

He was on vacation with his wife in New York when he got news of the drownings. He knew immediately it was no accident.

The wads of money smoothed Shafia’s entry into Canada, but his heavy cultural baggage proved his downfall. “With almost all immigrants, especially from the Afghan community, it is especially for the future of their children that they come,â€￾ Ms. Jahesh remarked. “They want to let them have access to the good education that is in Canada.â€￾

Not Shafia. When Zainab met a boyfriend at school, he forced her to quit school. And when he sensed that he was losing control of his girls, he chose to kill them. One of the last examples of his twisted notion of parenting is found in a wiretapped conversation with Hamed, two weeks after the drownings and before they had been arrested.

“Be I dead or alive, nothing in the world is above your honour,â€￾ Shafia said. “Isn’t that right, my son?â€￾
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/30/mohammad-shafia-was-so-obsessed-so-closed-minded/
 
the best part is they didnt become Canadian Citizens and a MSNBC forum had said "Canadian Family" and I set them straight right away lol
 
Hamed Shafia files notice to appeal 1st-degree murder convictions
TORONTO - The lawyer for Hamed Shafia says his client has filed notice to appeal his first-degree murder conviction in the deaths of four family members.

Patrick McCann says Hamed Shafia, 21, has taken the first step by filing an inmate's notice to the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

McCann says the main grounds of the appeal relate to admissibility of what he calls "hearsay evidence" from the victims and of the expert evidence on "honour killing."

He says it will likely be at least a year before the appeal is heard.

Shafia and his parents Mohammad Shafia, 58, and Tooba Yahya, 42, were each found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder on Sunday in Kingston, Ont.
[...]
http://www.globaltoronto.com/hamed+...gree+murder+convictions/6442570773/story.html
 
Kinda long but worth the read,she sums up whole trial in laymans terms and sheds light on certain things we have wondered all along including
At autopsy, Sahar was found to be the only one of the four who didn’t have areas of fresh bruising to the top of her head.

Because of that, right or wrong, I’ve always imagined, in the prosecution theory of how the four were killed, that she was the last to be taken out of the car and drowned. I fear that by the time her killers came for her, she knew very well what was happening: The girl who wanted to be a doctor when she grew up realized she was not going to grow up.
Thast paragraph when I read it gave me gose bumps and I cant kick the image from my mind now her sitting there just spent and knowing it was her turn next
Christie Blatchford: No honour in ‘cold-blooded, shameless’ murder of Shafia girls
KINGSTON, Ont. — It was, as the shy prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis said outside the lovely old Frontenac County courthouse, “a good day for Canadian justice.â€￾

And so it was: Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya and Hamed Mohammad Shafia, respectively the Afghan parents and brother of three teenage girls and the woman they loved like a mother, had just been convicted of four counts each of first-degree murder moments earlier.

“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,â€￾ Laarhuis said.

The “visitorsâ€￾ reference was a kind and graceful nod to Rona Amir Mohammad, Shafia’s unacknowledged other wife.
Unlike the rest of the sprawling clan, she was brought to Canada as a domestic servant and was on a visitor’s visa, its renewal held over her head like a axe ready to fall by her co-wife Yahya and Shafia.

The three, still crying foul as they were led away to begin serving automatic life sentences for murder, are guilty of wiping out nearly half their family.

“It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable and more honourless crime,â€￾ Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger said Sunday after the jury foreman had read aloud the verdicts.
Looking directly at Shafia, 58, Yahya, 42, and their oldest son Hamed as they stood before him in the prisoners’ box for the last time, the judge concluded with a stinging denunciation.

“The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameless murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honour, a notion of honour that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.â€￾

By using the words “honourlessâ€￾ and “shamelessâ€￾, Maranger was tossing back at Shafia some of the very epithets he used so often when speaking about his dead daughters.

The mass honour slaying of Zainab, Sahar and Geeti — respectively 19, 17 and 13 — and 52-year-old Mohammad, Shafia’s other, and sadly barren, wife, ranks among the worst in the sordid history of honour crimes.

It was an electric finale for a case that got international attention for the horrific “honourâ€￾ motive which drove the crime and for a great, rollicking trial which featured shocking wiretapped evidence, galling testimony and even a bomb threat.

At its very heart, as prosecutors argued, were not only the three lost teens and Mohammad, but also the very notion of what is a girl.

As Shafia once howled to Yahya, in what they imagined was the privacy of their minivan just days after their household had been almost halved: “Every night I used to think of myself as a cuckold. Every day I used to go and gather (her) from the arms of boys.â€￾

If the question was downright creepy — why on Earth would any father ever feel like a cuckold? — the answer was far worse: Because, of course, that father believed he was the one who had absolute control of his daughters’ sexuality.

As prosecutor Laurie Lacelle told the jurors in her closing address — and here she was talking about the family’s desperate efforts to get Zainab back home after she had run away to a shelter just two months before her death — the family was frantic because “she might be with unapproved males. She might be having sex.â€￾

This was one of the most egregious disconnects of the trial, the difference between the overwhelming evidence that this was a family absolutely obsessed with honour and female chastity and what the Shafias said about it in court.

Both Yahya and Shafia flatly denied ever even hearing about honour killing and said, besides, one could never reclaim it that way anyway, heaven’s no.

As Yahya put it, “This (honour killing) is something I never heardâ€￾ until “they put this name on our case, which is really shameful for us.â€￾

Yet honour crimes, a phenomenon spreading across the planet and on the rise just about everywhere, have happened and been publicized in every place this family has ever lived, from their native Afghanistan to Australia and Dubai and, of course, Canada.

Where once such crimes were largely confined to the Middle East and South Asia, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women now gets reports of such crimes from more than 20 countries.

Recent research by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, which just last month published figures from British police forces obtained through freedom of information requests, showed almost 3,000 honour attacks were recorded by police in the United Kingdom in 2010.

And Pakistan, where the Shafias fled in 1992 and lived for four years, is to honour killing what Las Vegas is to gambling or Mecca to Islam — the holiest shrine.

Every year, between 300 and 1,000 girls and women in Pakistan are punished, usually but not exclusively by their fathers and brothers, for real or perceived crimes against family honour. Just last month, Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission reported that in the first nine months of 2011, 675 women and girls were killed in honour slayings.

These crimes always involve real or imagined breaches of female sexual integrity, and the offences range from being seen with unknown males, being too independent, being raped (which brings shame to the tribe), asking for divorce, dressing provocatively — or even rumours of any of the above.

And in the last two years, 2006 and 2007, that the Shafia clan lived in Dubai before coming to Canada, a local paper, the Gulf News, reported at least two cases of honour crimes, one where two brothers beat up and locked away their 35-year-old sister for staying with a man.

In fact, the day after the jurors retired, Montreal’s La Presse ran a front-page interview columnist Michele Ouimet had with one of Yahya’s sisters, Soraya, in Kabul.

Soraya was “scandalizedâ€￾ by the pictures the reporter showed them, shot of Zainab and Sahar in ordinarily skimpy skirts or bathing and with male friends and boyfriends. She and her husband both cheerfully told Ouimet they believe in killing for honour.

Her husband Habibullah said simply, if his daughters (the couple has seven, plus two boys) dishonoured him, “I would put them in a bag and eliminate them so no one would ever find their traces in Afghanistan.â€￾

But Yahya and Shafia never heard of such killings before?

Their testimony on this point was transparently self-serving and nakedly dishonest: They were lying through their teeth.

But then lying is like breathing to this family.

If it’s a fair generalisation that some Afghans have learned to say whatever they think their listener wants to hear, if it’s true that there is what’s called “permissible lyingâ€￾ in Islam (it’s called al-Taqiyya, and means the concealing or disguising of one’s beliefs, feelings or opinions to save oneself from injury), none of it quite explains the Shafias.

Neither typical Afghans nor typical Muslims, and certainly not devout, they simply have their own unusual if not unique pathology.

The jurors heard how theirs was a house divided: Boys were good, trusted, given freedom; youngsters, even girls so long as they weren’t yet menstruating and thus prone to temptation, were good; pubescent girls and older, not so much.

This may explain Yahya’s copious tears when speaking of her youngest, the little girl who was just eight when all this unfolded: Eight is such a good, safe, innocent, age for a girl.

But for this wee girl, who burst into tears at the funeral and wailed Geeti’s name aloud, the others who survived the family holocaust were the boy, who testified for his father at trial, and the middle sister.

The boy was caught on a wiretap the night before his parents were arrested and after he and his two siblings had been apprehended by child welfare officials. It is evident from what he said on the tapes that at the least, he was playing ball with the story spun by his parents and Hamed — and perhaps even that he knew of the murder plan at minimum after it had been carried out.

A permanent publication ban protects their all names.

By the evidence, with their big brother Hamed, the middle siblings kept a close eye on their more daring sisters.

.
Hamed once miraculously arrived at the house minutes after Zainab, their parents gone to Dubai, had sneaked her boyfriend in: The suggestion was he’d been following her. The son who testified at trial reportedly encountered Sahar with her boyfriend at a restaurant near their school.

At the very sight of him, the couple sprang apart and he even kissed another girl to deflect suspicion.

Sahar and Geeti once told Nathalie Laramee, their school VP, they were “afraid in the houseâ€￾ and that “we know our behaviour at school is reported back at the homeâ€￾. They appeared to be referring to both middle sibs, who went to the same school.

And consider what Zainab wrote to Ammar Wahid, the young man she briefly married in the incident which sparked the familial conflagration, in an email before they even met for the first time, she laid out the rules: He was not to approach or acknowledge her publicly; she would come to his locker if she could, and if he saw her brother Hamed anywhere, he should “act like complete strangerâ€￾.

In this world, there was no such thing as dating. A girl who liked a boy had to marry him (thus Zainab’s desire to get married was as much about escape as anything else) and only if he was suitable — preferably Afghan, Muslim and from a good family.

The parents’ wealth appears to have shielded them, not from official scrutiny, but from sanction.

Three times the girls’ school, where teachers were alarmed either by Sahar’s profound sadness or Geeti’s increasing wildness, called one or another of Quebec’s child-welfare agencies, the last time in June, just weeks before the family set out on their ostensible vacation.

Each time, the sisters either backed off their original allegations, usually in their parents’ presence (their father could silence them with a glare), or the parents and other children so vigorously denied them, that the files were closed — though in at least one instance, the worker deemed the allegations “foundedâ€￾ or true.

This combination of a perceived need for cultural sensitivity, a family which was so well-off and presentable, and kids so frightened out of their skins they recanted, defeated the child-welfare complaint system.

Consider what Montreal Police Detective Laurie-Ann Lefebvre, who with a partner investigated the 911 call some of the children had a stranger make on their behalf the day Zainab ran away, had to say about Sahar.

Det. Lefebvre was a child-abuse investigator. She interviewed the children, and one of Sahar’s chief complaints was a lack of freedom.

Prosecutor Lacelle asked her, “How did Sahar appear?â€￾ and Det. Lefebvre replied, “Well, I was surprised. She said she had no freedom, but she was well-dressed, wore jewelry, had nice makeup. She did not seem depressed.â€￾

And the detective told Sahar that: “I said, ‘no freedom?’. I said, ‘You’re well-dressed, have nice makeup.’â€￾

Let that be a lesson for Canadian police, women’s rights activists, social workers and the like: The oppression of girls and women wears different faces, and some of them are beautiful, not battered, and some of them are beautifully made up. Birds in gilded cages are still in cages.

It was the very sort of societal prejudice which ended up leaving the girls even more vulnerable and protecting the Shafia parents and Hamed. If the trio felt entitled and safe to do what they wanted, who could blame them?

Virtually every time Shafia and Yahya encountered Canadian authorities, they bamboozled them.

The family arrived in Canada under Quebec’s “immigrant investorâ€￾ program — investors put up a chunk of cash interest-free in exchange for permanent residency — and three months later, no questions asked, brought in the other wife, Amir, as a domestic servant on a visitor’s visa.

The parents were called in by school officials a number of times, but Yahya would weep, Shafia would rail furiously, and no action would be taken.

When the school called in child welfare, the same thing would happen: Denials, rage and tears from these affluent parents worked in this country. All their experience with institutional Canada gave them no reason to imagine that a small-city police force wouldn’t be similarly stymied.

It explains the collective arrogance they brought to their crime; they simply imagined they would get away with it.

That it was not a brilliant plan — nor well-executed — actually became part of their defence. Who, Shafia’s lawyer thundered in his closing address, would ever pick such a weird place to commit a murder, take such a chance?

But the truth is, criminality and stupidity are hardly mutually exclusive; rather, the opposite.

It is a delicious irony that it was in some part Shafia’s cheapness — he may be rich but he always kept a wary eye on the pennies — which first raised police suspicions and undermined the family’s original story.

All three — mother, father and Hamed — first claimed that the last they saw of any of the four dead women was shortly after they all got to the Kingston East Motel, when Zainab allegedly came looking for the keys to the Nissan, and then purportedly took the others out for the fatal spin.

But when father and son were checking in, and manager Robert Miller asked how many people there would be in each room, their answers got his attention.

“Six,â€￾ said Shafia, clearly not wanting to pay extra for the quartet who would never make it to the motel and would soon be dead in the water.

Hamed then said something to him in Dari, they had a bit of a chat, and Hamed then said, “Nine.â€￾ Miller, who of course would remember this forever, suggested they settle on a number.

They did: The receipts, signed by Hamed, show there would be three people per room.

Then there was the matter of the Nissan itself: Shafia, unwilling to see fine cars like the Lexus SUV or the Montana minivan wasted on four females, picked up the used Nissan for $5,000 the very day before the family left Montreal for Niagara Falls.

No one will ever know for sure how the three girls and Amir drowned — was it in the turning basin at the locks, as police believe (they even checked the drains)? Were they administered a drug which incapacitated them then so quickly disappeared from their bodies toxicological tests couldn’t find it?

What is in no doubt is that all four of them, in the long weeks and months before their deaths, knew they were in danger, that they were afraid, and that their pleas for help were misunderstood or minimized.

At autopsy, Sahar was found to be the only one of the four who didn’t have areas of fresh bruising to the top of her head.

Because of that, right or wrong, I’ve always imagined, in the prosecution theory of how the four were killed, that she was the last to be taken out of the car and drowned. I fear that by the time her killers came for her, she knew very well what was happening: The girl who wanted to be a doctor when she grew up realized she was not going to grow up.

On that June night in a lovely place in one of the freest and luckiest nations in the world, at the hands of those who should have most loved and protected her, she was killed because, well, she was a girl.[...]
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/29/jury-reaches-verdict-in-shafia-trial/
 
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But when father and son were checking in, and manager Robert Miller asked how many people there would be in each room, their answers got his attention.

“Six,â€￾ said Shafia, clearly not wanting to pay extra for the quartet who would never make it to the motel and would soon be dead in the water.
Hamed then said something to him in Dari, they had a bit of a chat, and Hamed then said, “Nine.â€￾ Miller, who of course would remember this forever, suggested they settle on a number.
They did: The receipts, signed by Hamed, show there would be three people per room.

They very well could have been killed as they waited on the freeway for Hamed and Shafia to return this could account for the disrepancy in amount of guests, maybe they were taken one at a time, its over now, they were found guilty as they should be.
 
Cuckold is a historically derogatory term for a man who has an unfaithful wife. The word, which has been in recorded use since the 13th century, derives from the cuckoo bird, some varieties of which lay their eggs in other birds' nests. [1]
In modern usage, a cuckold can also mean a male fetishist who gains sexual gratification from his partner having intercourse with other people.

I had to look that up, but it still don't make sense to me.
 
This is sadly going to be a very hard crime to stop. In many of these cases, they don't even care if they go to prison. They still feel they restored their family's honor.
 
big write up in lastnights paper about the sentence was meant to show people coming over here and having probs with their daughters westernizing
Honor killings will not be tolerated and will get a very stiff sentence each time

ill find it later when Im home
 
It is a delicious irony that it was in some part Shafia’s cheapness — he may be rich but he always kept a wary eye on the pennies — which first raised police suspicions and undermined the family’s original story.

All three — mother, father and Hamed — first claimed that the last they saw of any of the four dead women was shortly after they all got to the Kingston East Motel, when Zainab allegedly came looking for the keys to the Nissan, and then purportedly took the others out for the fatal spin.

But when father and son were checking in, and manager Robert Miller asked how many people there would be in each room, their answers got his attention.

“Six,â€￾ said Shafia, clearly not wanting to pay extra for the quartet who would never make it to the motel and would soon be dead in the water.

Hamed then said something to him in Dari, they had a bit of a chat, and Hamed then said, “Nine.â€￾ Miller, who of course would remember this forever, suggested they settle on a number.

They did: The receipts, signed by Hamed, show there would be three people per room.

Then there was the matter of the Nissan itself: Shafia, unwilling to see fine cars like the Lexus SUV or the Montana minivan wasted on four females, picked up the used Nissan for $5,000 the very day before the family left Montreal for Niagara Falls.





I am sure this was partly what made the case. If he had been a bit less concerned about losing his expensive car, or saving money at the hotel there would have been less for the suspicions to settle on.

Very pleased with the outcome.
 
I am sure this was partly what made the case. If he had been a bit less concerned about losing his expensive car, or saving money at the hotel there would have been less for the suspicions to settle on.

Very pleased with the outcome.

yeah he bought a cheaper car the day before to me thats premeditation
He does get to keep his properties while in prison
but he will die there ,never live to parole most likely
will most likely lose his properties b/c he will now have no way to make money to be able to pay taxs on that property according to the lawyers in paper lastnight AND I LOVE IT
hes got no family here to run the businesses and hes only had he and Hammer Toe doing all the business in Dubai and so they are predicting he will lose the propertys all over the place
 
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This is sadly going to be a very hard crime to stop.

In Denmark they were "letting" minors do the killing, secure in the knowledge that we would not lock them up and throw away the key.


Then a couple of years ago they succesfully prosecuted a conspiracy to murder charge, which punished quite a large number of the people who were involved in a so-called "honour-killing", from the aunt who pretended to be on the side of the young couple that was eloping and set them up to the father of the child that was the designated shooter, down to and including the guy who drove the father and the child to the scene. It was a huge effort and a glorious success, and I hope other families with murder in mind took note.
 
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Middle Eastern men/families who think that honor killing is justified and whom prison will not deter are probably operating under the belief that things will be similar to their country of origin. These countries will imprison honor killers, but not for very long. They are barely in the door when they get out again.
One-third of the reported homicides in Jordan are honor killings. The killers are treated with leniency, and families assign the task of honor killing to a minor, because under Jordanian juvenile law, minors who commit crimes are sentenced to a juvenile center where they can learn a profession and continue their education, and then, at eighteen, be released without a criminal record. The average term served for an honor killing is only seven and a half months.
http://www.pbs.org/speaktruthtopower/rana.html
The Palestinian Authority, using a clause in the Jordanian penal code still in effect in the West Bank, exempts men from punishment for killing a female relative if she has brought dishonor to the family.[69] Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, promised to change the discriminatory law, but no action has been taken.
Actions of Pakistani police officers and judge have, in the past, seemed to support the act of honor killings in the name of family honor. Police enforcement, in situations of admitted murder, do not always take action against the perpetrator. Also, judges in Pakistan, rather than ruling cases with gender equality in mind, also seem to reinforce inequality and in some cases sanction the murder of women considered dishonorable. [121] Often, a suspected honor killing never even reaches court, but in cases where they do, the alleged killer is often not charged or is given a reduced sentence of three to four years in jail. In a case study of 150 honor killings, the proceeding judges rejected only eight of claims that the women were killed for honor. The rest were sentenced lightly.[122] In many cases in Pakistan, one of the reasons honor killing cases never make it to the courts, is because, according to some lawyers and women’s right activists, Pakistani law enforcement do not get involved. Under the encouragement of the killer, police often declare the killing as a domestic case that warrants no involvement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing

As I was reading on this, one particularly disturbing point made was that honor killings are treated in much the same way as westernized countries treat "crimes of passion". That brings it back home rather forcefully. Years ago, there was a judge in Maryland that gave a husband who killed his wife a miniscule 18 month sentence. Kenneth Peacock caught his wife in flagrant delicto and killed her later that day with the second shot he fired from a single-shot rifle. The judge sympathized with the man and called him a non-criminal. The point being that our own social mores and justice systems are not too far removed from the same moral space these Middle Eastern folks are inhabiting and I find that frightening.
 
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"The second shot [...] from a single-shot rifle"? "Later that day"? :stupido3:




Doesn't sound particularly impulsive to me...... I thought to claim "crime of passion"-defense one had to act immediately in a red haze of fury, using whatever happened to be to hand at the time, be it kitchen knife or alarm clock or one's bare hands? OK, so he might have had a rifle on him if he was returning from a hunting trip, but he had to re-load it, and "later in the day" just pours cold water all over it to my mind. Do we know how much "later" it was?
 
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"The second shot [...] from a single-shot rifle"? "Later that day"? :stupido3:
Oh, yes. You can go to the link I provided to read the story, but I'll give you the cliff notes. This man drove the male lover away with his gun. He then engaged in an argument with his wife over some hours. He fired a shot which went over her head. He reloaded, and fired another shot which killed her. It wasn't even the first time he'd caught her with a lover, nor the first time he'd held a gun on her.
 
Jeez.....

Went to the link.

Kenneth Peacock arrived home on Feb. 9 and found his wife Sandra in bed with another man. Police say Peacock drove the man out at gunpoint, then spent several hours drinking and arguing with his wife before shooting her in the head with his hunting rifle. The fatal wound was actually the second shot fired at Sandra Peacock that night. Kenneth Peacock had to stop and reload his single-shot rifle when the first shot hit the wall above her head.

As far as I am concerned, any claim he had on "crime of passion" as a defense goes out of the window with what I have bolded.......

During the sentencing hearing, Judge Cahill said he couldn't imagine a situation that would provoke "an uncontrollable rage greater than this . . . for someone who is happily married to be betrayed in your personal life, when you're out working to support the spouse. (emphasis added)

And yet he controlled it for several hours, - and according to what you are saying (it not being the first time he had caught her cheating on him) I would question the "happily married/feeling of betrayal" meme, too. He knew what their marriage was and who she was. He killed her from some warped sense that he had a right to do so.
 
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Shafia wife killed because she was despised by husband, second wife
She once overheard one of the murderers refer to her as “that other one,” the honour killings trial was told – as though she were a piece of unwanted baggage.

And in a sense she was.

The portrait of Rona Amir Mohammad, long-suffering first wife of the Afghan-born killer Mohammad Shafia, that emerged from the evidence presented by trial prosecutors and from her diaries, a court exhibit, was of a tolerant, liberally inclined stepmother who cared passionately about the family's children.
While Rona was unable to have children herself, she helped raise the Shafia children,” prosecutor Laurie Lacelle told the trial in her opening address. “She loved them all.”

She was drowned in her early 50s at the Kingston Mills locks along with three teen-aged Shafia sisters.

At the murder trial, Ms. Mohammad's younger sister, Diba Masoomi, who lives in France, recounted that Ms. Mohammad told her during phone calls that the other adults in the family had ostracized her.

But this had to be kept secret, she testified, because “the family honour would be in danger, and her own life would have been in danger.”
[...]
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...sband-second-wife/article2323378/?from=sec431
 
In a sad way,Tundratot is right about how crimes of passion are viewed in the same way honor killings are in many cases. I remember the Clara Harris case in Texas where some people actually wanted the charges against her dropped. Being a cheater doesn't mean you deserve to get murdered or that the perp should get a slap on the wrist. However in many cases the perps do get sympathy while the victims are put on trial.
That's the same thing with honor killings. The perps get sympathy in many of these countries while the victims are seen as deserving of their deaths. That is very hard to deter. But hopefully with cases like this, it will send a message. This isn't the Middle East where the justice system will give you a slap on the wrist. You commit murder, you will spend a long time in prison.
 
Shafia father files appeal, mother to file later
Mohammad Shafia, the father convicted of killing his three teenage daughters and first wife in a polygamous marriage, has filed an appeal, according to a media report.

Shafia filed an inmate notice of appeal, according to CTV, based upon similar grounds as his son, Hamed, who was convicted in the murders.
Hamed filed his appeal on Monday.
When contacted by Postmedia News, Shafia's lawyer, Peter Kent, declined to comment.

Shafia's second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, who was convicted of first-degree in the case will also file an appeal. A representative from the law office of David Crowe, who defended Yahya, said an appeal will be filed at a future date but declined to comment further.
[...]
http://www.canada.com/news/Shafia+father+files+appeal+mother+file+later/6099200/story.html
 
Maclean's releases first multimedia e-book ‎on Shafia family murder trial
TORONTO - It’s a case that captured headlines nationwide and made Muslim leaders across Canada denounce so-called honour killings, domestic violence and misogyny.

Now, coverage of the Shafia family murder trial is available as a multimedia e-book—the first of its kind in Canada.

During the duration of the trial, Maclean’s reporter Michael Friscolanti lived in a Kingston, Ont., hotel room for three months. The Shafia Honour Killing Trial allows readers to immerse themselves in the trial itself and includes documents, video and audio evidence from the courtroom.

Sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and 13-year-old Geeti Shafia, were discovered with their polygamist father's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, in the car in Montreal’s Rideau Canal in June 2009.

Last month, a jury found the girls' father, Mohammad Shafia, his second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya and their son Hamed Mohammad Shafia guilty of four counts of first-degree murder with no chance of parole for 25 years.

The full e-book is available for purchase as an iPad app or can be downloaded as a PDF document.

[...]
http://www.globalnews.ca/canada/feature/6442576329/story.html


A downloadable PDF sample chapter can be seen at bottom of the link
 
Post ebook No. 6: Killed Because They Were Girls
The Complete Coverage of the Shafia Trial
By Christie Blatchford and the National Post

On the night of June 30, 2009, a father, mother and brother drowned half their family in a black Nissan just outside of Kingston, Ont.

On Jan. 29, 2012, Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya and Hamed Mohammad Shafia were each convicted of four counts of first-degree murder.

The apparent motive behind the killings was what the judge ultimately described as “a notion of honour that is founded in the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.” Christie Blatchford and the reporters and columnists of the National Post covered the so-called honour killings from the first reports of a submerged car to the final verdict. With her clear analysis and astute emotional observation, Blatchford provides the definitive account of a crime that appalled a nation.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/08/post-ebook-no-6-killed-because-they-were-girls/

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out of the books coming out I would recommend this one
shes one of my all time fave journalists
I read her column each night at work and right now shes keeping up on this bear of a man everyone loved in Toronto that was shot and killed b/c he wanted to do the right thing
 
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Moms the last one to file her appeal or intent to file
Tooba Mohammad Yahya files intent to appeal murder convictions in Shafia case
The mother of the Shafia family has joined her husband and son in filing her intention to appeal her convictions on four counts of first-degree murder.

Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, her husband Mohammad Shafia, 58, and their son Hamed, 21, have now each filed an inmate notice of appeal, which is the first step toward filing a full appeal at a later date.

The three were convicted Jan. 29 of killing daughters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and the first wife in the polygamous marriage, Rona Amir Mohammad, 52.

The bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car at the bottom of a canal in Kingston, Ont.

The judge described the killings as being motivated by the Shafias’ “twisted concept of honour.â€￾
[...]
http://www.thestar.com/news/article...appeal-murder-convictions-in-shafia-case?bn=1
 
[MENTION=1346]Whisper[/MENTION] " You made me think of something in comment 300
No one will ever know for sure how the three girls and Amir drowned – was it in the turning basin at the locks, as police believe (they even checked the drains)? Were they administered a drug which incapacitated them then so quickly disappeared from their bodies toxicological tests couldn’t find it?

Shafia has just come back from Afganistan, could he have brought some exotic type afghani type plant or drug we dont have tests for? Didnt Stoopa mention the girls were sleeping in the car while waiting for Shafia and Hamhead to find a hotel room?
 
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