The life sentences for a Pakistani couple convicted of murdering their 18-year-old daughter in a so-called honour killing after she refused an organized marriage have been upheld in an Italian appeals court docket.
The physique of Saman Abbas was present in an deserted farmhouse close to the fields the place her father labored in northern Italy in November 2022, 18 months after she disappeared.
The appeals court docket within the northern metropolis of Bologna stated on Friday that she was killed with the participation of the entire household.
The court docket upheld a life sentence for each {the teenager}’s father, Shabbir Abbas, and her mom, Nazia Shaheen.
Two cousins, who had been beforehand cleared by a decrease court docket, had been additionally sentenced to life in jail.
Saman’s uncle, Danish Hasnain, was additionally sentenced to 22 years in jail for his involvement within the homicide. He had been beforehand given a 14-year sentence.
The court docket case, in Reggio Emilia in northern Italy, grew to become essentially the most high-profile of a number of prison investigations in Italy lately coping with the slaying or mistreatment of immigrant ladies or women who rebelled in opposition to their household’s insistence that they marry somebody chosen for them.
So-called honour killings are frequent in Pakistan, the place relations and relations typically kill ladies who don’t comply with native traditions and tradition or determine to marry somebody of their very own alternative.
Italian prosecutors contend that Saman was murdered by her household on Could 1, 2021. A couple of days later, her dad and mom flew from Milan to Pakistan.
Her father was later arrested in Pakistan and extradited to Italy for prosecution. Her mom was convicted in absentia however was arrested in Could final 12 months after three years on the run.
Abbas’ uncle, two cousins, her father and her mom went on trial first in February 2023. All of the defendants have denied wrongdoing.
Saman Abbas had emigrated as a youngster from Pakistan to the farm city of Novellara in Italy’s northern area of Emilia-Romagna. She shortly embraced Western methods, together with shedding her scarf and relationship a younger man of her alternative. In a single social media submit, she and her Pakistani boyfriend had been proven kissing on a avenue within the regional capital, Bologna.
In response to Italian investigators, that kiss enraged Abbas’ dad and mom, who needed her to marry a cousin in Pakistan.
The younger girl was final seen alive on April 30, 2021, a number of hundred yards away from the place her physique was found in surveillance digicam video as she walked together with her dad and mom on the watermelon farm the place her father labored.
Abbas had reportedly advised her boyfriend that she feared for her life due to her refusal to marry an older man in her homeland.
An post-mortem revealed a damaged neck bone, presumably attributable to strangulation.
In 2019, Italy made coercing an Italian citizen or resident into marriage, even overseas, against the law lined below home violence legal guidelines.
Following Abbas’ disappearance, Italy’s union of Islamic communities issued a spiritual ruling rejecting compelled marriages.
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