'Honour killing' relatives guilty

[Al-khiyal]

Metropolitan Police 'let down' victim killed by her family

Police who 'let down' murder victim face no hearing

December 10, 2008 -- Two police officers who "let down badly" a south London woman who asked them for help before she was brutally murdered in a so-called honour killing will not face a disciplinary hearing, the police watchdog said.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said the two officers, an inspector and constable in the Metropolitan Police were guilty of "serious failures" over the case of Banaz Mahmod.

The Iraqi Kurd from Mitcham, was brutally murdered by her father and uncle who discovered she was having an affair.

In the months preceding her disappearance, the 20-year-old contacted police five times. On New Year's Eve 2005, only weeks before she vanished, Ms Mahmod ran in to a cafe in Wimbledon in a "distressed" state, claiming people were trying to kill her.

She told police she was forced to drink alcohol and had cut her hands when breaking a window to escape. An IPCC investigation found officers focused their attention on the broken window and ignored the threats against her.

The officers were due to face a hearing last month but a key witness refused to give evidence, the IPCC said. The officers will now receive "words of advice".

IPCC Commissioner Naseem Malik said she was "deeply disappointed" that the hearings would not go ahead. But she said it would be impossible for the officers to get fair hearings without the witness.

Six detectives, four from the Met and two from the West Midlands force, were given written warnings after the IPCC investigation concluded in March. Another Met Constable was also given "words of advice".

Miss Mahmod was strangled with a bootlace and her body stuffed into a suitcase. Her father and uncle were jailed for life for her murder at the Old Bailey.

[Al-khiyal]

'Honour killing' pair convicted

November 10, 2010 -- Two men who became the first suspects ever extradited to Britain from Iraq are facing life sentences for the "honour killing" of a 20-year-old woman. Mohammed Ali and Omar Hussain have been found guilty of murdering Banaz Mahmod in January 2006 after she fell in love with a man disapproved of by her family. Banaz, of Mitcham, Surrey, was subjected to an horrific assault, strangled, and stuffed in a suitcase found buried under a Birmingham patio three months later. The pair carried out the murder with a third man, Mohammad Hama, on behalf of Banaz's father, Mahmod Mahmod, and uncle, Ari Mahmod. The Mahmod brothers and Hama, members of the Kurdish community, were jailed at the Old Bailey in 2007 when a judge described their crime as "barbaric".

Ali and Hussain seemed to have escaped justice, having fled to their homeland in northern Iraq, a country with a ban on extraditing its citizens. But a police team led by Detective Chief Inspector Caroline Goode was determined to bring them to account and Ali, 30, and Hussain, 32, have been convicted by a jury following a second Old Bailey trial. Ms Goode said the case was a warning to those who tried to escape justice: "We are not going to give up." She added: "The extradition is legal history."

Ali's whereabouts came to attention when he was arrested in Sulaimaniya after killing a 16-year-old boy in a hit-and-run motorcycle accident. Local women's groups were aware he was wanted in Britain and alerted Iraqi authorities. Police in London were informed in October 2007, via the FBI, that he was in custody. Legal advice given to the Metropolitan Police suggested the ban on extradition was not "insuperable" and in November the Crown Prosecution Service decided to ask for Ali to be brought back. He was eventually brought to Britain in June 2009.

Hussain, a notorious smuggler believed to be responsible for a number of murders in his home country and described by police as an "absolute menace", was holed up in a remote and lawless area. He was being sheltered by his two brothers but turned up in hospital in December 2009 after being shot in the leg with an AK-47 by one of them. He was extradited to Britain in March 2010, where he complained about the NHS treatment for his wounded leg and tried to jump the queue for an operation.

Ari and Mahmod Mahmod were jailed for life in July 2007, with minimum terms of 23 and 20 years, for arranging the killing. Mohammad Hama was also given a life sentence, with a minimum 17-year tariff. Ali and Hussain were also found guilty of conspiracy to kidnap and making threats to kill the victim's boyfriend Rahmat Sulemani and perverting justice by burying her body. Sardar Mahmood, 27, of Messenger Road, Smethwick, Birmingham, was found not guilty of the kidnap, threats and perverting justice charges and was discharged.