Guilty As Charged: Shafia ‘Honor Killing’ Murder Trial Verdict Reached

Here’s an update on this story.  The Muslim family that killed their three daughters because they had boyfriends have been found guilty of first-degree murder as charged. In a Muslim country, they would have likely been let go or given little more than a slap on the wrist. In a country where laws are largely based upon common-sense Judeo-Christian values, and not barbaric and inhumane Sharia law, justice has been served …

“KINGSTON, Ont. — After Canada’s first mass-honour-killings trial, three members of a Montreal family have all been found guilty of first-degree murder in the drowning deaths of four other family members — including three teenage sisters.

A jury on Sunday handed down its guilty verdicts for Mohammad Shafia and Tooba Mohammad Yahya, as well as their 21-year-old son, Hamed.

They had been charged with murder after the bodies of three Shafia sisters — Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and 13-year-old Geeti — were discovered in a submerged vehicle in a canal near Kingston, in June 2009.

Also in the vehicle was Rona Amir Mohammad, the 52-year-old first wife of Shafia, whom he married in his native Afghanistan before the polygamous family moved to Canada in 2007 and settled in Montreal.

All three suspects had faced four counts of first-degree murder.

The trial, which began in October 2011, heard from 58 witnesses and was presented with more than 160 exhibits from both prosecutors and defence lawyers. While some described Shafia as the ultimate family man, other witnesses painted a picture of strict control in the family and limited freedoms for his daughters.

A dozen independent witnesses — including Montreal police, social workers, teachers and school officials — testified the girls feared their father and even some of their siblings, who they believed were spying on them, and were depressed and desperate to get away.

On wiretap recordings played for jurors, Shafia called his daughters ‘whores,’ ‘filthy’ and ‘rotten children’ who betrayed the family and Islam and did ‘cruelty’ to Shafia by secretly taking boyfriends and by wearing revealing clothes.

Prosecutors alleged that the victims died in an honour killing orchestrated by Shafia to cleanse the shame he felt from the conduct of his daughters.” Read more.

Killed for Islam - From left to right: First Wife Rona Amir Mohammad, Zainab Shafia (19), Sahar Shafia (17), Geeti Shafia (13)