An Italian court has given a Pakistani couple life sentences for killing their 18-year-old daughter because she refused an arranged marriage.
Saman Abbas’s body was found at a farmhouse in northern Italy in November 2022, 18 months after she disappeared.
Her father, Shabbar Abbas, was arrested in Pakistan and extradited to be tried for her murder in August.
Her mother, Nazia Shaheen, was convicted in her absence. She is believed to be in hiding in Pakistan.
Shabbar Abbas had earlier made an impassioned plea to the court, asserting that “never in my life did I think of killing my daughter”.
The teenager’s uncle, Danish Hasnain, was given 14 years in jail for involvement in the murder, but two of her cousins were cleared.
Saman Abbas’s so-called honour killing by her family in late April 2021 shocked Italy. Following her disappearance, Italy’s union of Islamic communities issued a fatwa – a religious ruling – rejecting forced marriages.
The teenager had emigrated with her family from Pakistan to the farm town of Novellara in 2016, according to Italian reports.
She began dating a young man of Pakistani origin, and a photograph of them kissing on a street in the regional capital, Bologna, reportedly drew the fury of her parents.
Italian investigators said Saman Abbas’s parents had wanted her to travel to Pakistan for an arranged marriage in 2020, but she refused.
She then lived for several months under the protection of social services from October that year, but returned to the family home in Novellara in late April 2021 in response to a flurry of messages from her family, Italian reports said.
Prosecutors said she had been tricked into returning home and it was at this point she disappeared.
CCTV footage released by the police showed three of Saman Abbas’s family members walking with spades, a crowbar and a blue bag on 29 April 2021. The following day, separate footage showed the missing teenager leaving the house with her parents.
Her body was eventually recovered last November, close to a farm house not far from where the family lived, after her uncle had revealed where she had been buried.
A post mortem examination found she had suffered a broken neck bone, possibly as a result of being strangled. (BBC)
