Parents of Shafilea Ahmed Sentenced to 25-years after Being Found Guilty of Her 'Honour' Killing
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The parents of Shafilea Ahmed, who believed their 17-year-old daughter had brought shame on the family for wanting to live a western lifestyle, have been been jailed for 25-years each after being found guilty of her murder.

Iftikhar Ahmed and his wife Farzana were convicted of the honour killing today following a three month trial at Chester Crown Court.

Shafilea's father showed no emotion as he was sentenced but his wife sobbed loudly. Trial judge Mr Justice Roderick Evans told them: "Your concern about being shamed in your community was greater than the love of your child."

The court had been told how the couple from the same village in rural Pakistan had jointly killed their 17-year-old daughter after claiming her behaviour had brought the family into disrepute.

They had clashed with their eldest daughter over her westernised lifestyle and objected to her wearing the same clothes as her white friends, rather than traditional Pakistani dress.

In 2003, months before she disappeared she was forced to travel to Pakistan, where she was expected to marry a man more than ten years her senior.

In desperation Shafilea swallowed bleach, badly burning her throat and causing the man to call off the marriage. He declared she was “damaged goods”.

She returned to Britain but went missing from the family home in Warrington in September 2003. » | Friday, August 03, 2012

’Vile Murder’
TIMESONLINE: A Muslim teenager who went missing after expressing fears she was being forced by her parents into an arranged marriage was the victim of a “very vile murder", a coroner said today.

Shafilea Ahmed's decomposed body was found by workmen on the banks of the River Kent at Sedgwick, Cumbria, five months after disappearing from her home in Warrington, Cheshire, in September 2003.

Ian Smith, the East and South Cumbria coroner, ruled that the teenager was unlawfully killed. He said he believed the A-level student was murdered, and that the concept of an arranged marriage was "central" to the circumstances leading up to her death.

She was genuinely afraid, rightly or wrongly, that her parents were planning to arrange her marriage, Mr Smith told the inquest at Kendal County Hall at the end of a four-day hearing.

"She was murdered. I’m convinced of that because of the way in which the body was disposed, it had been hidden and she had been taken many miles away from home," he said.

He could not state where she died but he was "very confident" it was not on the river bank. "I do not believe she escaped and ran away. She was taken," he said.

"Shafilea was the victim of a very vile murder. I do not know who did it. There’s no evidence before the court as to who did it.
I sincerely hope in the future inquiries will be carried out by the police and they will one day discover who did it because this young woman has not had justice.

"Her ambition was to live her own life in her own way. To study, to follow a career in the law and to do what she wanted to do.

"These are just basic fundamental rights and they were denied to her." Muslim teenager was victim of ‘vile murder’, coroner says >>> By Lucy Bannerman and agencies

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