'Honour killing' relatives guilty

[Cheba_Mami]

'Honour killing' relatives guilty 11 june 2007,

A father has been found guilty of killing his daughter in what police have described as an honour killing. The body of Banaz Mahmod, 20, was found in a suitcase buried in a garden in Birmingham last year.

Her father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and uncle Ari Mahmod, 50, from Mitcham, south London, were both convicted of murder at the Old Bailey. A third defendant, Darbad Mares-Rasull, was cleared of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Ari Mahmod was also found guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Mohamad Hama, 30, of West Norwood, south London, an associate of Ari, has pleaded guilty to the murder.

Banaz's boyfriend was threatened by her family

Killed in the name of honour

Miss Mahmod was killed after falling in love with a man her family did not want her to marry. Her father and uncle ordered the murder because they believed she had shamed the family, the three-month trial heard. Banaz had made several attempts to warn police that her life was in danger, even naming those she thought would kill her.

In footage recorded following an earlier attempt on her life by her father in December 2005, she said she was "really scared". However her statement following the assault was allegedly not taken seriously enough by investigating officers. Several officers are being investigated as part of an internal review of the case by Scotland Yard's Directorate of Professional Standards.

Banaz fled but later went back to her family and tried to carry on her relationship with boyfriend Rahmat Sulemani in secret.

Mr Sulemani broke down in tears when giving testimony, saying they had been threatened with death if they carried on seeing each other. He later said: "My life went away when Banaz died. "The only thing which was keeping me going was the moment to see justice being done for Banaz."

'Ultimate betrayal'

Banaz was urged to stay at a safe house but told officers she believed she would be safe at home because her mother was there.

She disappeared on 24 January and her decomposed body was discovered in Handsworth, Birmingham, three months later. Her sister Bekhal, 22, who is in hiding from the family, condemned her relatives for taking Banaz's life. She said: "To do this to their own flesh and blood was unforgivable. Forgiveness isn't even a question. They don't deserve to be on this earth."

After the verdict, Detective Inspector Caroline Goode, said: "Clearly there is no honour in killing... I think it is the ultimate betrayal for a parent to kill a child."

CPS spokesman Paul Goddard said: "The murder of Banaz Mahmod by her father, uncle and their associates not only took away the life of a young woman, it left her boyfriend in fear of his life and also left other members of the family and the community in fear."

BBC NEWS | England | London | 'Honour killing' relatives guilty

[Ruks]

its really sad this stuff happens, i'm not sure that the communities involved are doing enough to first, talk about this stuff openly and secondly try and prevent this from happening. whole families are involved in the killing.

parents sometimes need to calm down on this 'izzat' (honour) issue, and look at their daughters interest. and children need to look at it from their parents point of view, and both of them need to come to a middle way. and the masjids need to really tackle this issue head on.

[Al-khiyal]

This case involves a hard line Kurdish community some of whom consider themselves to be 'true Muslims' - or so they boasted when threatening the young man who became involved with the murdered girl. (A 'patrol' of Kurds spotted her kissing him and took a picture with a camera phone, a picture that carried a death sentence).

As for 'honor' part of it all - I know for an absolute fact that two of her killers, who escaped to Iraq, have boasted there that they raped the poor girl before killing her.

Some honor.

[Al-khiyal]

As one of five daughters in a strictly-traditional Kurdish family, Banaz Mahmod's future was ordained whether she liked it or not.

She was kept away from Western influences, entered an arranged marriage at the age of 16 with a member of her clan and was expected to fulfil the role of subservient wife and mother.

But Banaz, a bright, pretty 19-year-old, fell in love with another man.

And for that, she was murdered by her father, uncle and a group of family friends. The very people who should have protected her from harm plotted her killing, garrotted her with a bootlace, stuffed her body in a suitcase and buried her under a freezer.

Banaz's crime was to "dishonour" her father, Mahmod Mahmod, an asylum seeker from Iraqi Kurdistan, by leaving her abusive marriage and choosing her own boyfriend - a man from a different Kurdish clan.

Her punishment was discussed at a family "council of war" attended by her father, uncle Ari and other members of the clan. In the living room of a suburban semi in Mitcham, South London, it was decided that this young woman's life was to be snuffed out so that her family would not be shamed in the eyes of the community.

Banaz was only ten when she came to Britain with her father, who had served in the Iraqi army, her mother Behya, brother Bahman and sisters Beza, Bekhal, Payman and Giaband.

The family, who came from the mountainous and rural Mirawaldy area, close to the Iranian border, were escaping Saddam Hussein's regime and were granted asylum.

But Banaz's move to a western country changed nothing about the life she was made to lead.

She had met her husband-tobe only three times before her wedding day, once on her father's allotment. He was ill-educated and old-fashioned but her family described him as 'the David Beckham of husbands'. The teenage bride, who was taken to live in the West Midlands, was to tell local police in September 2005 that she had been raped at least six times and routinely beaten by her husband.

In one assault, she claimed, one of her teeth was almost knocked out because she called him by his first name in public.

To leave the arranged marriage would have brought dishonour on the Mahmod family and Banaz's parents apparently preferred their child to suffer abuse rather than be shamed.

But after two years of marriage, she insisted on returning home to seek sanctuary. It was there, at a family party in the late summer of 2005, that she met Rahmat Sulemani.

For the first time in her blighted existence, Banaz fell in love. She was besotted with Rahmat, 28, calling him 'my prince' and sending endless loving text messages. Her father and uncle Ari were furious; the young woman was not yet formally divorced by her husband and her boyfriend was neither from their clan nor religious. More importantly, perhaps, he had not been chosen by her family.

Mahmod became enraged when his daughter refused to give up her boyfriend and talked of being in love.

The threat to family honour was immense and made worse by the fact that Banaz's elder sister, Bekhal, had already brought "shame" on the family by moving out of the house at the age of 15, to escape her father's violence.

Bekhal's defiance meant that Mahmod lost status in the community because he was seen to have failed to control his women and his younger brother Ari, a wealthy entrepreneur who ran a money transfer business, took over as head of the family.

It was he who telephoned Banaz on December 1, 2005 to tell her to end the affair with Rahmat or face the consequences.

The following day, Ari called a council of war to plan her murder and the disposal of her body. She was secretly warned by her mother that the lives of her and her boyfriend were in danger, and she went to Mitcham Police Station to report the death threat. But she was so terrified of her family's reaction that she asked police to take no action and refused to move to a refuge.

The next day, an officer called at the family home but Banaz would not let him in.

She believed that her mother would protect her from harm but as an insurance against her disappearance, went back to the police station a week later to make a full statement, naming the men she believed would kill her.

One of the men was Mohamad Hama, who has admitted murder and two of the others named fled back to Iraq after the killing. On New Year's Eve 2005, she was lured to her grandmother's house in nearby Wimbledon for a meeting with her father and uncle to sort out her divorce.

When her father appeared wearing surgical gloves, ready to kill her, she ran out barefoot, broke a window to get into a neighbour's house and then ran to a nearby cafe, covered in blood from cuts to her hands and screaming: "They're trying to kill me".

The officers who attended the scene and accompanied Banaz to hospital did not believe her story.

However, the distressed and injured victim was able to give her own testimony about the attack to the jury in a short video recorded on Rahmat's mobile phone at St George's Hospital, Tooting.

The terrified lovers pretended they had parted but they continued to meet in secret. Tragically, they were spotted together in Brixton on January 21 and the Mahmods were informed.

Mohamad Hama and three other men tried to kidnap Rahmat and, when his friends intervened, told him he would be killed later.

When he phoned to warn Banaz, she went to the police and said she would co- operate in bringing charges against her family and other members of the community.

The policewoman who saw Banaz tried to persuade her to go into a hostel or safe house but she thought she would be safe at home because her mother was there.

On January 24, Banaz was left on her own at the family house and her assassins, Hama and two associates, were alerted.

The full details of what happened to her are still not known but two of the suspects, Omar Hussein and Mohammed Ali, who fled back to Iraq after the killing, are said to have boasted that Banaz was raped before she was strangled, "to show her disrespect".

There followed a "massively challenging" investigation into her disappearance by detectives, fearing the worst. The family's appalling crime was finally exposed when, three months after she went missing, Banaz's remains were found, with the bootlace still around her neck.

The discovery of her body provoked no emotion in her father and uncle. Even at her funeral, the only tears were from Banaz's brother.

"She had a small life," a detective on the case said. "There is no headstone on her grave, nothing there to mark her existence."

Yesterday, her devastated boyfriend, who has been given a new identity by the Home Office under the witness protection programme, said: "Banaz was my first love. She meant the world to me."

The dead girl's older sister, Bekhal, urged other women in the same position as her and her sister to seek help before it is too late.

Even today she continues to fear for her life, lives at a secret address and never goes out without wearing a long black veil that covers her entire body and face apart from her eyes.

She strongly rejected the suggestion that Banaz had brought "shame" on her Kurdish family by falling in love with a man they did not approve of, saying her sister simply wanted to live her own life.

"There's a lot of evil people out there. They might be your own blood, they might be a stranger to you, but they are evil.

"They come over here, thinking they can still carry on the same life and make people carry on how they want them to live life."

Asked what was in her father's mind on the day that Banaz died, Bekhal replied: "All I can say is devilishness. How can somebody think that kind of thing and actually do it to your own flesh and blood? It's disgusting."

Bekhal says she is scared whenever she sees somebody from the same background as her.

"I watch my back 24/7."

The tragic story of Banaz Mahmod: she fell in love at 19, so her family killed her

[Al-khiyal]

A gentle kiss on a South London street captured on a mobile telephone camera sealed Banaz Mahmod’s fate.

When the photograph, taken by a member of the Kurdish community, was shown to Miss Mahmod’s uncle, Ari Mahmod, a family meeting was called where it was decided that the 20-year-old woman and her boyfriend, Rahmat Sulemani, must be murdered.

From the viewpoint of her uncle, a prominent figure among South London’s Kurds, and her father, Mahmod Mahmod, she had already walked out of an arranged marriage and was now bringing further shame on the family.

Two months later, Miss Mahmod vanished. None of her family reported her missing. Only Mr Sulemani went to the police to say that his girlfriend’s worst fears had come true.

Three months later, her naked body was found crammed into a suitcase and dumped in a 6ft makeshift grave below a pile of bin bags, a rusting fridge and a discarded television in a back garden in Birmingham. The bootlace that was used to strangle her was still tied around her neck.

Born in the Kurdish region of Iraq, Miss Mahmod came to England at the age of 10 with her family when they fled Saddam Hussain’s regime.

While her father, who had served in the Iraqi Army, sought the safety of the West, he was determined to preserve the traditions of his Mirawaldy culture.

A father of six and a strict Muslim, Mahmod Mahmod ruled the family home with a rod of iron. When Bekhal, an older sister, wore Western dress her father called her a whore, beat her and demanded that she wear the veil. She eventually went into foster care and, when old enough, severed all links with the family.

When Banaz Mahmod was 17 she was married to a Kurdish man in the Midlands. It was imperative that the arranged marriage worked because two of Mahmod’s other daughters had ended their marriages.

But the relationship was disastrous; she tried to hang herself and later told police that her husband had raped her. Risking her father’s wrath, she fled her husband and returned to the family home in Mitcham, South London.

She later met Mr Sulemani, an Iranian Kurd, and the pair soon fell in love. Because Mr Sulemani was not a strict Muslim and not from the Mirawaldy region, Miss Mahmod’s father ruled that she would never marry him. To enforce this point, she was taken to a Kurdish home in Sheffield and beaten for two weeks. On her return, the couple continued to meet in secret.

When Ari Mahmod saw the photograph of the embrace, he contacted a gang of Kurdish thugs and planned the murders. In one bungled attempt on New Year’s Eve, Mahmod Mahmod took his daughter to her grandmother’s home in Wimbledon, plied her with drink and told her to wait for others to arrive. Fearing his motives, she fled.

In January last year, Mohamad Hama, 30, along with other Kurdish men, attempted to bundle Mr Sulemani into a car. As Mr Sulemani escaped, Hama shouted after him: “We are Muslim and Kurdish. We are not like the English where you can be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

But a few days later, Miss Mahmod was dead. The night before her murder, she went to the police but refused the offer of a safe house. Torn between her devotion to her family and the belief that her father could not really want her dead, she wrote in her first police statement: “I do not want to leave home or go to a place of safety. I want to stay with my parents.”

In court, it was shown that a series of telephone calls was made between the father and uncle on the day of the killing. The thugs also used a hire car, unaware that it had been fitted with a satellite tracking device, which would prove that they had been to the Mahmod home on the day of her disappearance and later to the house where her body was found.

Today Miss Mahmod’s sister, Bekhal, 22, lives at a secret location and will not leave her home without wearing a full veil in case a contract to kill her remains in force in accordance with her uncle’s desire to see her “turned to ashes”.

After the trial, she said that although life in the family home had been “frightening and intimidating”, she believed that her sister had returned because she thought that her mother could protect her.

“But [in Mirawaldy culture] that’s not the case – the females have to stick by the males, their husbands and fathers,” she said.

Mr Sulemani, who remains under witness protection, continues to mourn the woman whom he planned to marry.

“She was my present, my future, my hope – the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said at the end of the three-month trial. “My life went away when Banaz died. I am heartbroken and falling apart. All the dreams and the hopes are crushed.”

Countdown to a killing

December 4, 2005 Banaz Mahmod tells police of her uncle’s threats to kill

December 5 Police visit her home. She asks them to leave, adding she does not want to pursue allegations

December 12 She gives police a letter naming potential killers

December 31 Her father tries to kill her but she flees. WPC Angela Cornes attends. Rahmat Sulemani records Miss Mahmod’s allegations. She returns to his home

January 2, 2006 She meets her sisters and mother and is persuaded to return home

January 22 A Kurdish gang threatens Mr Sulemani

January 23 He reports incident to Kennington police. Miss Mahmod tells Mitcham police of death threats. She refuses a place in a women’s hostel

6.30pm The couple speak secretly on mobile phone

January 24 Miss Mahmod is murdered. Police call at the family home. Her father says she is out

January 25 Police visit her parents who say they do not want to report her missing

January 26 Police class her as a high-risk missing person

January 27 Full-scale investigation is launched

April 28 Her body is found in a suitcase in Birmingham

Extracts from Banaz Mahmod’s account of how her father tried to kill her, filmed in hospital on her boyfriend Rahmat Sulemani’s mobile phone:

"He said: “I brought you some beer that you can drink.” He asked me if I had ever drunk before. I said no, never. He gave it to me and said open it up and drink it bit by bit. He said I have to drink half the bottle.

"We were in the living room, the curtains were all shut and the room was dark. He said: “Turn your back to me.” I turned around every now and then I was looking. I didn’t turn my back fully on him. I was sitting sideways to him.

"He asked me: “How do you feel now?” I told him I feel hot. He said: “Where, in your chest?” I said yes. I got up and stumbled. I was really dizzy. He asked me, do I want to sleep? I said no.

"I finished the drink, I finished all of it. He got up and went over to the other room. He came back into the room. He was wearing black Reebok trainers and blue gloves. But they were in different colours, one was blue and the other was white. I was really scared. I got up to leave the room and I went towards my dad. I was trying to get to the front door but he said: “Sit down, sit down. You are sleepy.” And I did so.

"Then he went to the other room. At this point I looked at the door, I went towards the back garden door. The key was in the door, so I opened the door. Then I smashed two windows, one of them with this hand and the other with this hand. But no one came to help me, and then I ran to a fence and jumped over it."

Having fled Iraq, she died at the hands of her father – and all because of a kiss

[Al-khiyal]

LONDON -- Two men suspected of being directly involved in the 'honour' killing of Banaz Mahmod have fled to Iraq. The unnamed men are said to have boasted about raping Banaz in her home before they garroted her with a bootlace and stuffed her body in a suitcase.

One is a rebel fighter who is believed to have killed several people in his homeland of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The details emerged a day after Banaz's father and her uncle were found guilty of her murder at the Old Bailey after she fell in love with the wrong man.

Her father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and his brother Ari Mahmod, 51, ordered the murder because they believed she had shamed the family.

Scotland Yard has ordered a review into how police dealt with the case after it emerged that Banaz went to the Met on at least four occasions saying she feared she was going to be killed by her family.

Yesterday the Standard revealed Banaz also contacted West Midlands police with fears for her safety, while a specialist police unit set up to prevent murders such as honour killings was disbanded months before her death.

Banaz handed police a list of the men she believed had been ordered to kill her, a list that was later used in the successful investigation into her killing by detectives.

At least five uniform police officers face disciplinary investigation for alleged failures to investigate her complaints.

The most serious allegations are against Pc Angela Cornes who dismissed the 20-year-old's claims that her life was in danger, believing she was drunk and being melodramatic.

The police officer even approached Banaz's father to ask about an allegation of attempted murder, a move that breaks guidelines on dealing with honour victims because it puts the victim at greater risk.

Cornes now faces a neglect of duty allegation and possibly the sack.

Banaz told police four times she feared the men wanted to kill her though she refused one attempt to get her to go into a hostel for her own protection.

On another occasion she contacted Croydon police with an allegation of rape but because she said it had taken place in Birmingham it was referred to West Midlands police.

The specialist Homicide Prevention Unit (HPU) whose tasks included stopping honour killings was disbanded by Scotland Yard just months before her killing.

The work of the HPU was passed to another department but insiders say it was severely downgraded, while efforts to establish a system of flagging honour crimes was abandoned.

Sources say political correctness lay at the heart of the decision to downgrade investigation into honour crime because of the criticism of minority communities.

Commander Simon Bray, who ordered the review of the case, said: "We accept there are things that with hindsight we would have done differently. But these are complex cases, you are dealing with people who are living with parents, siblings or friends.

"It is very difficult to guarantee people protection unless you can extract them from their situation. We have ways of offering people protection but it requires co-operation. But we are learning."

Banaz disappeared in January last year. Her body was found three months later.

Mahmod and Ari Mahmod, both from Mitcham, were convicted of her murder following a three-month trial.

Mohamed Hama, 30, of West Norwood, an associate of Ari, had already pleaded guilty to the murder.

Honour killing suspects on the run in Iraq

[Al-khiyal]

"If it were young white girls complaining that their lives were at risk, there would be an outcry."

POLICE are failing to protect young women at risk of being murdered by their families in so-called honour killings, senior British officers said, as the father and an uncle of a young Kurdish woman were convicted of her murder.

The admissions came as the Metropolitan Police were criticised for their handling of the case of Banaz Mahmod, who had repeatedly warned police that family members were trying to kill her.

The senior officers said measures aimed at saving lives had been shelved, delayed or ignored. Among them were plans to train frontline staff in how to spot vulnerable women and a system to ensure potential victims of honour-based violence were risk-assessed and properly dealt with.

One detective said that if the Met prevention scheme had been in place Ms Mahmod might be alive today. "We started to learn lessons and then stopped learning them as a result of political correctness. And then Banaz died and that should never have happened," he said.

A lack of formal training for officers had also resulted in a "police station lottery", where women like Ms Mahmod were in danger of being ignored or not given adequate protection.

Another officer said: "If it were young white girls complaining that their lives were at risk, there would be an outcry."

In Ms Mahmod's case, the Old Bailey criminal court in London heard that she had repeatedly told police her family was trying to kill her. Ms Mahmod, 20, told officers on at least four occasions between December 4, 2005, and January 23, 2006, about threats made. She also wrote a letter, naming those she thought were plotting against her.

On New Year's Eve she told police her father had tried to kill her but the officer did not take her claims seriously.

Her body was found on April 28, 2006, crammed into a suitcase and buried in the back garden of house about 150 kilometres away in Birmingham.

The bootlace used to strangle her was still around her neck.

On Monday, after a three-month trial, her father, Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and her uncle, Ari Mahmod, 51, both of Mitcham, south London, were found guilty of murdering her. A third man, Mohamad Hama, 30, had earlier pleaded guilty to her murder. Two other suspects have since fled to Iraq. The convicted men will be sentenced later this month.

In court, her father told the jury: "I loved her, I loved all my children. I could not harm her." But prosecutors said nothing could be further from the truth.

The court was told Ms Mahmod had been forced to marry an Iraqi Kurd when she was 17 but the relationship collapsed and she returned to live with her parents in 2005, later falling in love with Rahmat Suleimani, a 29-year-old Iranian.

Her family decided to kill her because they believed the relationship had shamed them as Mr Suleimani was not a strict Muslim. The court was told the family had already suffered the shame, as they saw it, of one of Ms Mahmod's four sisters moving out of the family home.

The additional embarrassment of having Ms Mahmod divorce and then remarry a man they deemed unsuitable would have been unacceptable in their eyes.

Detective-Inspector Caroline Goode, in charge of the investigation, said Ms Mahmod was a loving and caring young woman whose death at the hands of her family was the "ultimate betrayal".

A number of police officers will face an internal disciplinary inquiry over their handling of Ms Mahmod's case in the weeks before she died. Their actions will also be the subject of a police-led investigation under the Domestic Violence Crime and Victims Act.

The inquiry will look at whether police might have increased the risk to Ms Mahmod by speaking to her parents after the New Year's Eve incident, or by approaching her mother on an earlier occasion. Metropolitan Police guidelines on such investigations clearly state: "Do not approach the family."

A 2003 strategy to deal with such crimes included recommendations for training all officers and a "flag" system for honour-based violence was not introduced until last year.

Police failed woman in honour killing