Girl found dead in river 'had feared a forced marriage'

The Guardian ^ | Jan 9 07 | Helen Carter

[camerakid400]

he parents of a 17-year-old girl whose badly decomposed body was found in a river may have been trying to force her into marriage against her will, an inquest heard yesterday.

Shafilea Ahmed disappeared from her home in Warrington, Cheshire, four months after a family trip to Pakistan, on which she was introduced to a potential suitor. During the holiday she drank bleach and self-harmed in an apparent cry for help. The inquest was also told of reports that she had been subjected to domestic abuse at home. Police launched a murder inquiry after her body was found concealed in undergrowth in February 2004, after the river Kent in Sedgwick, Cumbria, was swollen by floods.

Shafilea's father, Iftikhar Ahmed, 48, and his wife Farzana, 45, vehemently deny any involvement in their daughter's disappearance or death and claim they were victims of racial stereotyping. Detective Superintendent Geraint Jones, who led the murder inquiry, told the inquest in Kendal that her parents had been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping in December 2003, but were released without charge. Suspicions had been aroused by statements from people who knew Shafilea claiming that she was "subject to domestic abuse and potential for forced marriage". He said there was reason to "suspect her family of involvement in her disappearance".

[doc1019]

ROP at it again. She thought it better to be died than married to some freaktoid muslim not of her choosing.

Sorry she had to do this, if in fact it was suicide.

[Soliton]

Sorry she had to do this, if in fact it was suicide.

Yeah, suicide like jumping out of the twin towers to avoid burning to death

[doc1019]

?

[Soliton]

SHE WAS FORCED INTO IT TO AVOID A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH

[Bobalu]

"The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men."

Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).

[Pontiac]

Police launched a murder inquiry after her body was found concealed in undergrowth in February 2004, after the river Kent in Sedgwick, Cumbria, was swollen by floods.

Dr Alison Armour, a Home Office pathologist, said it was "not credible" that the teenager died of natural causes. The remains were badly decomposed and the skull and organs were missing, so she was unable to ascertain a cause of death. However, a natural cause was "unsustainable because of the concealment of the body on the riverbank.

Now I have very few details to go on but from these details I could make the argument that the girl committed suicide by jumping in the river and drowning.

After which the body sank. When the river flooded her body was deposited in the undergrowth.

Some time after her death animals (land or aquatic) ate the missing parts of the body or during the flood the body was dismembered by the flood waters.

I do not doubt that a Muslim father obsessed with his code of honor would kill a obstinate daughter but I just don’t understand the pathologist statement with the meager facts given.

[I_like_good_things_too]

Perhaps they found irrefutable evidence of hiding the body, e.g., twistie ties or something crazy to tie girl with.

[Pontiac]

Well the considering the condition of the body something else the pathologist says is completely insupportable.

The most likely cause of death would be smothering or strangulation."

With out a head how can he say that? The body is badly decomposed and there are no organs. Where could he possibly find evidence to support these suppositions?

Unless he has some evidence he is withholding I can not see how the prosecution is going to make a case.

[river rat]

Once again -— Pakistan and Pakistanis play a roll in lunacy..

TOO frequently, the Pakistani behave as though they’re still in Pakistan or some other Turd World hovel living under Sharia Law.....

If they persist — they should all be sent back.
Further immigration should be shut off.

[Roses0508]

They can actually demonstrate strangulation on a corpse without tissue - there are little bones in the throat, the name of which escapes me - which are easily crushed.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Hyoid, if I remember my CSI.

[steve-b]

Shafilea Ahmed

Oh, those wacky atheists -- or was it Unitarians...?

[Roses0508]

There you go. That’s the one.

[null and void]

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door “y’all remember to wipe your feet”
And then she said “I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge”
“Today Billie Jo MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
“Well, Billie Jo never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please”
“There’s five more acres in the lower forty I’ve got to plow”
And Mama said it was shame about Billie Jo, anyhow
Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Jo MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Jo
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn’t I talkin’ to her after church last Sunday night?
“I’ll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don’t seem right”
“I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge”
“And now you tell me Billie Jo’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

And Mama said to me “Child, what’s happened to your appetite?”
“I’ve been cookin’ all morning and you haven’t touched a single bite”
“That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today”
“Said he’d be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way”
“He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge”
“And she and Billie Jo was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

A year has come ‘n’ gone since we heard the news ‘bout Billie Jo
And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going ‘round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring
And now Mama doesn’t seem to wanna do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge

And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge...

[Pontiac]

there are little bones in the throat, the name of which escapes me - which are easily crushed.

With the head missing I would be surprised if small bones would still be present.

[fanfan]

Here is the report from the court case, so far.
Daily Mail, UK.

---

Shafilea Ahmed claimed that she was regularly beaten by her parents

A Muslim teenager made a dramatic plea to be saved from her abusive parents a few months before she died in what police believe was an “honour killing”.

Shafilea Ahmed was seen with injuries on her neck, an inquest heard yesterday.

The westernised 17-year-old, who wanted to become a solicitor, was frightened her parents would send her to Pakistan and force her into an arranged marriage.

After running away from home, she told a local council housing officer: “There were regular incidents since I was 15 - one parent would hold me while the other would hit me.”

She said her parents, taxi-driver Iftikhar Ahmed, 48, and his wife Farzana, had prevented her going to school or her part-time call centre job.

Shafilea also said her mother stole £2,000 she had saved from her bank account.

She ran away in February 2003, climbing out of a window of her home in Warrington, Cheshire, with the help of her friend Melissa Powner.

Miss Powner confirmed that Shafilea had lived in fear of her parents. Months earlier she had been off school for a week and returned with visible injuries on her neck.

Shafilea explained they came from a confrontation with her parents over boys’ phone numbers on a phone bill.

Miss Powner said: “She didn’t have much of a life - she wasn’t able to be with her friends and socialise outside school.”

She said that as they were walking to school one morning, Mr Ahmed saw them and pulled Shafilea into his car. Miss Powner said: “He shoved me out the way and said ‘Keep out of it’.”

Police were called, but Shafilea agreed to return home, saying later that her mother had got down on her knees and promised there would be no forced marriage. Days later, however, she flew to Pakistan with her father.

When she returned in the summer of 2003 she needed weeks of hospital treatment after apparently swallowing bleach in protest at a planned marriage.

In September she enrolled to continue her A-levels at Priestley College, Warrington, and made contact with Miss Powner. But before they could meet, Shafilea disappeared.

Her family did not raise the alarm, but police were called by a teacher after the teenager missed classes.

Her parents put their home on the market the same day, telling a potential buyer they were moving because their daughter had brought ‘shame’ on the family.

Shafilea’s remains were found in February 2004 beside the river Kent in Cumbria, 100 miles away. A pathologist has said she was probably smothered or strangled.

Mian Khan, who was introduced at the Kendal hearing as Shafilea’s grandfather, insisted there had never been any plans to force her to marry.

But on being asked to confirm that Shafilea’s father was indeed his son, he opted not to reply after being told he did not have to answer questions which might incriminate him.

Accused of affirming, rather than swearing an oath on the Koran, because he knew he was going to be telling lies, he again refused to answer.

The hearing continues.

[Pontiac]

But on being asked to confirm that Shafilea’s father was indeed his son, he opted not to reply after being told he did not have to answer questions which might incriminate him.

Iguess he could not get his own father to lie for him so he had to rent one.

Accused of affirming, rather than swearing an oath on the Koran, because he knew he was going to be telling lies, he again refused to answer.

Well at least the liar is a good Muslim.

[fanfan]

I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t approach any young girl I see in a hijab, and ask her quietly, if she wants out.

This girl, the girl strangled by her father in Toronto, the two girls shot by their father in Dallas.

Maybe I should first ask her if her dad is a cab driver.
All 3 of these (so called) dad’s were.
Weird.

[Cindy]

I understand how you feel fanfan and you do have a big heart.

#

Nope, don’t approach them.
If someone approaches you; then you can assist them.

Either way, it would probably make you fatwa-worthy.