Christie Blatchford:
Startling revelations from relatives as Shafia trial jury deliberates
Christie Blatchford Jan 28, 2012
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KINGSTON, Ont. — One of Tooba Mohammad Yahya’s sisters and her husband fully endorse the notion of honour-killing. The startling revelation is contained in a Saturday story in Montreal’s La Presse, written by columnist Michele Ouimet, who interviewed the couple in Kabul two months ago.
As news of the story rocketed about the near-empty Kingston courthouse where jurors in the notorious Shafia murder trial are deliberating, the jurors were completing their first full day of work. They retired late Friday, and have now spent 11 hours in their jury room. They are sequestered, always accompanied by two court constables, kept away from radio, TV, newspaper and web reports of any kind and stay overnight as a group at a local hotel.
Ouimet’s front-page story was headlined: “Perdre filles, et avoir péché trois fois”, a quote from Yahya herself. It translates in English as, “to lose three daughters and have sinned three times.”
The reporter had facilitated a call between the two long-lost sisters, and when Soraya said she hoped she’d soon be out of jail, Yahya told her, “Yes my sister, there are problems. To lose three daughters and have sinned three times.”
Asked directly if she would kill for honour, Soraya replied yes, and said if the deed was sufficiently odious, the punishment is elimination. Her husband Habibullah, who was sitting in a corner and not participating in the women’s discussion, at the mention of honour piped up. If his daughters — the couple has seven, and two boys — dishonoured his family, he wouldn’t hesitate, he told Ouimet.
“I would put them in a bag and eliminate them so no one would ever find their traces in Afghanistan,” he said.
Ouimet noted that some of the daughters were present, and quiet, when their father said that.
The scenario fits in squarely with what the prosecution’s so-called cultural expert, Dr. Shahrzad Mojab, testified to at trial. ”There’s no serious debate about the phenomenon (of honour-killing), but on its forms, how to name it and how to deal with it,” she told the jurors.
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