Pakistani ‘honour killing’ parents are jailed for life in Italy for murdering their daughter, 18, by breaking her neck when she refused an arranged marriage
A Pakistani couple accused of 'honor killing' their daughter after she refused their demands to marry a cousin in their home country were jailed for life in Italy yesterday.
The body of 18-year-old Saman Abbas was exhumed in November 2022 from an abandoned farm near the fields where her father worked in northern Italy.
This was a year and a half after she was last seen alive on surveillance video walking with her parents near the same fields.
The tribunal in Reggio Emilia in central Italy ruled that the parents had ordered the murder and that an uncle had strangled his niece.
Italian prosecutors had argued that she was murdered by her family on May 1, 2021. A few days later, her parents flew from Milan to Pakistan.
The body of 18-year-old Saman Abbas (pictured) was exhumed in November 2022 from an abandoned farm near the fields where her father worked in northern Italy
The parents, Shabbar Abbas and Nazia Shaheen, were sentenced to life in prison, while her uncle, Danish Hasnain, received a 14-year sentence after accepting a plea deal. Two cousins were found not guilty and were released from prison.
Abbas' father, who was extradited from Pakistan in August, professed his innocence during a tearful statement in court before the deliberations.
His wife, Shaheen, was tried in absentia and is believed to still be in Pakistan.
The trial was the most high-profile of several criminal investigations conducted in Italy in recent years into the killings or abuse of immigrant women or girls who rebelled against the family's insistence on marrying someone chosen for them.
An autopsy revealed that the young woman suffered a broken neck bone, possibly caused by strangulation, in a case that has shocked the country.
The parents, Shabbar Abbas and Nazia Shaheen, were sentenced to life in prison, while her uncle, Danish Hasnain (pictured), received a 14-year sentence after accepting a plea deal. Two cousins were found not guilty and were released from prison
Saman Abbas' mother, Shaheen, was tried in absentia and is believed to still be in Pakistan
Abbas had emigrated from Pakistan as a teenager to a farming town, Novellara, in Italy's northern Emilia-Romagna region.
She soon embraced Western ways, including throwing off her headscarf, getting piercings, wearing eyeliner and dating a young man of her choice.
In a social media post, she and her Pakistani boyfriend were shown kissing on the street in the regional capital Bologna.
According to Italian investigators, that kiss infuriated Abbas' parents, who wanted her to marry a cousin in Pakistan.
Abbas reportedly told her boyfriend that she feared for her life due to her refusal to marry an older man in her home country.
Abbas reported her parents to the police and social workers placed her in a shelter in November 2020.
Abbas (pictured) had emigrated from Pakistan as a teenager to a farming town, Novellara, in Italy's northern Emilia-Romagna region
The body of 18-year-old Saman Abbas was exhumed in November 2022 from an abandoned farm (pictured) near the fields where her father worked in northern Italy
But she visited her family in April 2021, planning to collect her passport and start a new life with her boyfriend.
She disappeared soon afterwards and police, alerted by the boyfriend, raided the family home in May, but the parents had already left for Pakistan.
Her brother told police that he had heard his father talking about the murder and that it was the uncle who had killed his sister.
The young woman was likely murdered on the night of April 30 to May 1, according to surveillance camera footage showing five people leaving the family home with shovels, crowbars and buckets before returning two and a half hours later.