Kurd Muslim slit daughter's throat over Christian boyfriend

By TERRI JUDD

A strict Muslim who slit his daughter's throat because he believed she had become too westernised pleaded with the judge to sentence him to death yesterday.

When Abdalla Yones learned that his 16-year-old child Heshu had begun seeing a Christian teenager he stabbed her 11 times. Breaking down the door of the bathroom where she had barricaded herself in fear, he slit her throat leaving her to bleed to death in the bath.

Yesterday, as the 48-year-old Kurd was sentenced to life after becoming the first person in Britain to admit an "honour killing", Commander Andy Baker warned that anyone who carried out a similar murder - whether Muslim, Sikh or Christian - would suffer the severest penalties.

With an estimated 12 such deaths in Britain last year, Scotland Yard vowed to seek out those who collude in covering up for the killers. Police are considering such prosecutions in Heshu's case.

"We will not tolerate it, neither should any community," he said. Revealing pictures of the "bright, vibrant" teenager, Commander Baker added: "The haunting video images of Heshu Yones put a face to a crime that has, for too long, been shrouded and obscured by fear of cultural reprimand."

Yesterday Sawsan Salim, co-ordinator of the Kurdistan Refugees Women's Organisation, insisted the community condemned such honour killings, adding: "No excuse should be given for such a brutal tragedy."

Yones, the Old Bailey court heard, had fled the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime 10 years ago, bringing his young family to Britain. While they adapted easily to life in Europe he had felt like a "fish out of water".

Heshu, the "jewel" in her father's crown, had enraged him with her increasingly western ways and endured "very significant physical abuse". Having fallen for Samnizam Elkhouri, a Lebanese 18-year-old, she decided to run away with him.
But her secret was revealed when Yones received a letter, written in Kurdish, describing his daughter as a slut.

On 12 October last year, he "hacked his daughter to death", before cutting his own throat and jumping from a third floor balcony of their home in Acton, west London.

Police officers found him seriously injured but alive and went into the flat to discover Heshu's body.

A bent and broken kitchen knife still protruding from her neck bore testament to the savagery of the attack.

"He has asked me to ask you to pass a sentence of execution. I have made it clear that your Lordship does not have that power," his barrister, Icah Peart QC, told Judge Neil Denison yesterday.

Describing the case as a "tragic story arising out of irreconcilable cultural differences", the judge said: "It is plain you strongly and genuinely disapproved of the lifestyle in this country of your daughter and the fact that was affecting her schoolwork.

"But having said that, the killing and the manner of it was, as you have recognised, an appalling act. That is why immediately after and then again last month, you tried to take your own life. I accept that is still your intention.

"But there is only one sentence that the law allows me to pass where the crime is murder and that is the sentence I do pass - life."

A "bubbly, cheeky, fun-loving" girl, popular with school friends, Heshu had taken to asking friends to lie for her to evade her father's strict gaze, explained prosecutor John McGuinness QC.

She lived a double life, secretly putting on make-up only after she left home. Having started a relationship with a fellow pupil at William Morris Academy in Fulham, she began to play truant.

"There was tension at home, particularly with her father. He was not happy with her lifestyle and wanted her to live within the Muslim religion and cultural traditions," explained Mr McGuinness.

During a family holiday to Kurdistan last year, Heshu became worried her father might try and arrange a marriage.

"It was while there that the defendant might have discovered that she had a boyfriend and that she was not a virgin," explained Mr McGuinness.

Yones pulled a gun on his daughter and threatened to kill her. Returning to the UK, Heshu made plans to run away and wrote her father: "Bye Dad, sorry I was so much trouble. Me and you will probably never understand each other, but I'm sorry I wasn't what you wanted, but there's some things you can't change.

"Hey, for an older man you have a good strong punch and kick. I hope you enjoyed testing your strength on me, it was fun being on the receiving end. Well done."

When Yones received the letter, he brooded over the contents and decided to talk to her about it on the day of the murder, leading to a row. Yones, who spent months in hospital, afterwards first claimed that Heshu had been killed by an al Qaeda gang before admitting his action only last week.

His defence barrister explained that Yones had endured the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime and become involved in the struggle for independence, like his father before him.

Eventually, he fled with his wife, daughter and two sons to the UK where he was granted indefinite leave to remain.

Outside the court Commander Andy Baker, head of the directorate, added: "Let this conviction be a message, loud and clear, to those who misrepresent their own communities, and condone or stay silent over the treatment of women in their midst.

'Honour killing' is murder and the police and the justice system will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you are found to be guilty of, or an accomplice to, such 'crimes of honour'."

- INDEPENDENT