GUILTY Canada - Montreal family convicted in honor killings

[nobodyzgirl]

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/10/25/eerie-pixilated-video-of-alleged-honour-killing-victims-plays-for-court/

IMO, that's very telling that he mentioned 9 people needing a room and then changing it to 6, guess he knew at that point the 4 people he allegedly murdered were already at the bottom of the canal.

KINGSTON, Ont. — Just after half his family was either allegedly murdered or at the least tragically dead in a bizarre accident, Mohammad Shafia was still looking for a deal.

“He was asking could he get a discount,” said Robert Miller, the manager of the Kingston East Motel where some of the Shafia clan – those who weren’t dead, that is — were then staying.

“’Can’t you give me a better price?’” Mr. Miller remembered him saying, and his own reply: “No.”

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...add-up-for-accused-in-‘honour-killing’-trial/


I can't believe that he would haggle on the price of a room, this is the type of things front desk clerks are going to remember. One would think you would want to be as inconspicuous as possible so people didn't remember you - JMO.

 

[matou]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...nno-car-was-pushed-into-canal-court-told?bn=1

 

[Snoopster]

As soon as they stopped, Hamed drove on to Montreal, Shafia said, after telling his father he had work to do. The rest of the family went to sleep. Shafia said the Sentra was gone when they awoke the next morning.


"I just didn't find the kids, that made me worried," Shafia told his interviewer.


He said that the four missing family members were sleeping in one of two motel rooms together. The remaining family members stayed in the other room.


Shafia called Hamed in Montreal and asked him to come back to Kingston so they could go to the police station, he told Dempster. Hamed returned in a different vehicle, the family's Pontiac minivan.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Mohammad+Shafia+police+interview+played+honour+killing+trial/5624139/story.html

So how were the family going to get back to Montreal? There were six of them left in Kingston after Hamed left. And the just had the Sentra. Hmmm...

 

[nobodyzgirl]

Only hours into the interview did she finally admit that on the night her three daughters and "that lady" — as she invariably and dismissively called Rona Amir Mohammad, ostensibly her husband's cousin, but in truth his first wife — drowned in a black Nissan, she and her precious son Hamed heard the splash of the car entering the water at the Kingston Mills locks and ran toward it, "and we saw that a car was in the water."


Last time she'd seen that car, minutes earlier by her own admission, it was jammed with three of her seven kids — Zainab, Sahar and Geeti, respectively 19, 17 and 13 — and Amir.


But did she or Hamed do anything? Did they try to save the girls? Leap into the dark water? Call police?


They did not, Yahya acknowledged — in her case, she said, because of course she swooned from the shock and "fell down" and "became unconscious," as she is wont to do, and as for her son, she suggested, perhaps didn't have his cellphone.


Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Mother...ater+nothing/5650575/story.html#ixzz1ceCoPlUG

You hear and see the car in the water, knowing family members are there, and you do nothing, and they actually expected LE and now the jury to actually believe that they didn't actually murder these four women?

 

[nobodyzgirl]

The sensational murder trial against three members of an Afghan-Canadian family came to a sudden halt Thursday morning with the jury sent home and the case temporarily adjourned.

One of the accused had taken ill over night. Absent from the defendants’ box as jurors filed into the courtroom was Mohammad Shafia, 58.

Shafia, his second wife, Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed have all been charged with first degree murder in the drowning deaths of four family members: The couple’s daughters Zainab, Sahar and Geeti, respectively aged 19, 17 and 13; and Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, who was Shafia’s first spouse in a polygamous marriage.

“There’s been an unforeseen event,” Justice Robert Maranger told the jurors, who’d been about three-quarters of the way through watched a videotaped police interrogation of Yahya from July 22, 2009.

“One of the accused was taken ill. It was a medical emergency, a fairly serious one."

Maranger told the jurors he hoped they would be contacted by next Wednesday and informed when they should return to court.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...-abruptly-halted-after-accused-takes-ill?bn=1

 

[Snoopster]

The sensational murder trial against three members of an Afghan-Canadian family came to a sudden halt Thursday morning with the jury sent home and the case temporarily adjourned.

One of the accused had taken ill over night. Absent from the defendants’ box as jurors filed into the courtroom was Mohammad Shafia, 58.
Shafia, his second wife, Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed have all been charged with first degree murder in the drowning deaths of four family members: The couple’s daughters Zainab, Sahar and Geeti, respectively aged 19, 17 and 13; and Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, who was Shafia’s first spouse in a polygamous marriage.

“There’s been an unforeseen event,” Justice Robert Maranger told the jurors, who’d been about three-quarters of the way through watched a videotaped police interrogation of Yahya from July 22, 2009.

“One of the accused was taken ill. It was a medical emergency, a fairly serious one."

Maranger told the jurors he hoped they would be contacted by next Wednesday and informed when they should return to court.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...-abruptly-halted-after-accused-takes-ill?bn=1

If Mohammad couldn't bear the thought of his daughters defying him, so much so that he murdered them, then I would presume that he absolutely couldn't bear the fact that his wife basically told police that HE killed the family members. I wonder if yesterday in court was the first time he became aware of this.
JMO

 

[nobodyzgirl]

If Mohammad couldn't bear the thought of his daughters defying him, so much so that he murdered them, then I would presume that he absolutely couldn't bear the fact that his wife basically told police that HE killed the family members. I wonder if yesterday in court was the first time he became aware of this.
JMO

It wouldn't surprise me if it was the first time he became aware that his wife is accusing him of murdering the family members. I bet he's not happy that he no longer has any control over what his family says, and i wonder if that is part of the cause for his medical emergency now.

I wonder what the judge will decide, if he's going to be in the hospital and/or recovering for some time - declare a mistrial? Sever the other two co-accused and continue on with the jury at hand, trying Mohammad at a later date once he's well enough to stand trial or just delay the trial indefinitely?

 

[nobodyzgirl]

The trial of a Montreal family accused of killing three teenage sisters over family honour resumed today in Kingston, Ont.

The case was abruptly adjourned Thursday after one of the accused became ill.

The trial resumed today with the continuation of the video of the interrogation of Ms. Yahya, and minutes after it started Mr. Shafia buried his face in his hands and appeared to cry.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...interrogation-video-of-mother/article2229338/

 

[Snoopster]

Police placed bug in the family minivan during visit to the scene where three teenage daughters and a 52-year-old women drowned

<snip>
In another exchange a few minutes later, Yahya was back at it: "There was no camera over there. I looked around, there wasn't any. If, God forbid God forbid, there was one in that little room [an apparent reference to a building at the locks], all three of us would have been recorded."

They came as a sobering end to a day marked by the colourful testimony of Yahya's uncle, Latif Hyderi, an old mujahedeen from the days of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
<snip>

The father, who was in Dubai on business when the crisis erupted, was angry that Zainab was planning to marry a Pakistani boy (she did, for less than a day) and told Hyderi, "She wants to dishonour me" and then called her words so bad Hyderi apologized to "the souls of those martyrs [the dead girls]" before using them in court - "a . A dirty, a dirty woman."

Shafia told him, he said, to proceed with the marriage arrangements - to "call a mullah for this dirty lady, to get this girl out of the house" - but once it happened, Shafia told him "If I was there, I would have killed her."

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/Surveillance+camera+triggers+exchanges+captured+wiretap/5695345/story.html

 

[Snoopster]

Forensic pathologist Christopher Milroy told the Ontario Superior Court jury that after extensive testing for such substances as cyanide, cocaine, antifreeze and carbon monoxide, no toxins were found in their systems.

In his first police interrogation, the day after his daughters’ bodies were found, Mohammad Shafia suggested that they might have been drugged and that Zainab Shafia had taken the car keys to go on a joyride.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/11/28/shafia-canal-trial-pathologist.html


Please tell me they weren't alive and conscious when they went in the canal!
The autopsy couln't determine whether or not the bruises on the tops of their heads were from injuries sufficient to make them unconscious.

 

[matou]

Next up is Zainab Shafia, 19 when she died. She measures 177 centimetres and weighs 57 kilograms. Oddly, the cardigan she’s wearing is on backwards. There is some petechiae in her lower lids and bruising “above the nipple area’’ that is “possibly related to some kind of seizure — it could be there was some force against restraint . . . or trying to push away from a surface.”

Ummm WHAT?

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...s-yielded-few-clues-in-kingston-drowning?bn=1

 

[Snoopster]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1089104--shafia-saw-sisters-car-in-canal-and-didn-t-call-police-trial-told?bn=1

The key admission in the interview: Hamed Shafia saying he didn’t kill his sisters or his father’s first wife but he knew their car had fallen into the Kingston Mills locks. He could see its lights glimmering through the dark waters. He did nothing except throw a rope in the water, shake it a bit and call out their names. He didn’t notify the police. He didn’t tell his parents. He simply drove away.

It’s a curious story, not least because Hamed, when questioned earlier by police, had repeatedly denied being at the locks on that night of June 30, 2009.

Nice brother!

It's a bad enough story, but I don't even believe that they 'accidentally' drove into the canal.

I used to question how involve the brother was, but now it seems he had already been completely brainwashed by the dad, and was a huge threat to his sisters.

 

[nobodyzgirl]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/11/28/shafia-canal-trial-pathologist.html


Please tell me they weren't alive and conscious when they went in the canal!
The autopsy couln't determine whether or not the bruises on the tops of their heads were from injuries sufficient to make them unconscious.

I'm going to assume they were at least unconscious when they went into the canal, which is why there is damage to the other car (pushing the car with the victims into the canal) and the elaborate story that ensued about Hamed having an accident in Montreal. As for the victims being alive, I would hope for their sake that they were dead when they went into the canal.

 

[kmclaren]

Apparently they haven't been able to determine if they were alive or not...

KINGSTON, ONT. - The four women found dead in the Rideau Canal in 2009 died from drowning, the forensic pathologist who performed the post-mortem examinations confirmed in a Kingston courtroom Monday.
But Dr. Christopher Milroy said he could not determine "whether they were alive and drowned elsewhere and placed in the car ... I cannot say with any certainty whether they were conscious or unconscious when they were drowned."

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2011/11/20111129-085514.html

 

[Snoopster]

Prosecution wrapped up its case with testimony from an expert witness on honour killings.

Honour killings aren't limited to any one religion, and are usually perpetrated by men, though mothers sometimes participate, Mojab said. Such murders are even committed over perceived attacks on the family's honour, such as rumours about a woman having an affair or a girl having sex before marriage, she said.

"The way to deal with the dishonouring of the name of the family and the community, it is through the bloodshed because the shedding of the blood is a way of purifying the name of the family," she testified.

The same notions don't apply to male sexuality, she said.

Mojab told the court, during cross-examination, that she has never encountered an honour killing involving more than two victims or one that involved drowning.

There is debate in the academic community about whether it is useful to distinguish so-called honour killings from other forms of fatal domestic violence, Mojab said. One difference she noted is participation by the larger community in monitoring the behaviour of women.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20111206/shafia-family-murder-trial-honour-killings-expert-111206/

The defense begins to put forward their case on Thursday. I think they have a tough row to hoe.

 

[nobodyzgirl]

Mr. Shafia, his second wife, 41-year-old Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and their son Hamed, now 20, are all pleading not guilty to four counts each of first-degree murder.

Mr. Shafia&#8217;s greatest challenge may have been to explain the incendiary comment he made about his dead daughters in a conversation captured on Kingston Police wiretaps.

&#8220;May the Devil **** on their graves!&#8221; is what Mr. Shafia famously said.

Despite Mr. Kemp&#8217;s best efforts to have him say this was just a common old refrain back in Kabul, Mr. Shafia missed the bald hints and instead explained, &#8220;To me, it means the Devil will go out and check with them in their graves, and if they have done a good thing or a bad thing, it would be up to God.&#8221;

To Patrick McCann, who represents Hamed and asked, &#8220;Is that a common term for Afghans to use when angry?&#8221; Mr. Shafia dutifully replied &#8220;Yes.&#8221;

And to Ms. Lacelle, who noted that despite his claims to have forgiven Zainab her various transgressions, &#8220;if you said the Devil should **** on her grave, you still hadn&#8217;t forgiven her&#8221; Mr. Shafia insisted he had. &#8220;I gave her money, I kissed her face,&#8221; he said.

His testimony, clear as mud in every regard, stood in sharp contrast to the evidence of virtually every other witness who has testified at trial and to his own vicious utterings caught on the wiretaps.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...rial-makes-his-pitch-for-worlds-greatest-dad/

I'm surprised that the defence took such a bold move to put Shafar on the stand, it doesn't sound like helped his situation any.

 

[nobodyzgirl]

In a back-and-forth exchange that electrified the packed courtroom, a Canadian-Afghan entrepreneur accused of murdering three of his teenaged daughters and his first wife denied the charge, but nonetheless insisted that what had happened was God&#8217;s will, and that the four women deserved to die.

&#8220;You believe their actions brought about their rightful deaths, don&#8217;t you?&#8221; prosecutor Laurie Lacelle asked Mohammad Shafia.

&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Mr. Shafia replied.

But he said he took no part in the June, 2009 drowning deaths of Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia, aged 19, 17 and 13, together with that of Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, who was ostensibly Mr. Shafia&#8217;s cousin, but who was in fact his first wife and lived with the rest of the family in Montreal, in a clandestine polygamous marriage.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...afia-tells-murder-trial/article2265890/page1/

 

[Snoopster]

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/12/08/christie-blatchford-father-in-honour-killing-trial-makes-his-pitch-for-worlds-greatest-dad/

I don't recall seeing this photo of Geeti before. A precious young life lost.

She never even made it to high school.

 

[Snoopster]

A key admission came when Lacelle, using Shafia's conversations on Kingston Police wiretaps, quoted him telling Hamed on the day of their arrest that July that ``we haven't done anything wrong. They (the dead women) did it themselves.''

``Indeed,'' Shafia replied.

``You believe their actions brought about their rightful deaths?'' Lacelle asked.

``Yes,'' Shafia said.

He went on to say that the girls' lies to him and secrets they kept from him - the eldest had run away from home and Sahar had a boyfriend - amounted to a betrayal.

``You believed your daughters deserved to die for their treachery?'' Lacelle asked.

``That's up to God,'' Shafia snapped. ``What they did, for us (the family) they were not deserving.''

Not deserving of what??? Life? How utterly cold and heartless.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/canada/Blatchford+Prosecutor+mops+floor+with+accused+father+Shafia+murder/5839261/story.html

 

[Kat]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news...lieve+parents+were+killers/5847524/story.html

December 12, 2011

Brother of Shafia girls refused to believe parents were killers