Muslim parents ‘murdered their teenage daughter because her conduct was bringing shame on their family’

She just wanted to fit in. via Shafilea Ahmed: Parents ‘murdered their teenage daughter because her conduct was bringing shame on their family’ | Mail Online.

A teenager was killed by her Pakistan-born parents because they believed her Westernised lifestyle had brought shame on the family, a court heard yesterday.

Nine years after their daughter Shafilea vanished, Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed have gone on trial accused of murder.

The court heard that police made a breakthrough in the case when Shafilea’s sister told them she saw them kill the 17-year-old.

Shafilea had wanted to go to university to study law and have boyfriends like other girls her age, a jury was told.

But her parents are alleged to have resorted to violence in trying to force her to follow a traditional lifestyle, sending her to Pakistan for an arranged marriage.

There she swallowed bleach and was flown back to Britain for medical treatment. She vanished from the family home in September 2003 just days after she enrolled at college and started a part-time job.

Her parents failed to report her missing, and the alarm was raised a week later by a teacher. Her decomposed body was found five months later in undergrowth on the banks of a river.

Andrew Edis, QC, prosecuting, said Shafilea had been ‘a thoroughly Westernised young British girl of Pakistani origin’ who was subjected to violence for refusing to conform to her parents’ expectations.

‘The defendants, having spent the best part of 12 months trying to crush her will, realised they were never going to be able to succeed and finally killed her because her conduct dishonoured the family, bringing shame on them,’ he added.

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