Parents, uncle convicted of murdering Pakistani girl in Italy for refusing an arranged marriage

An Italian court sentenced two parents to lifetime imprisonment for killing their teenage daughter after she refused to travel to Pakistan for an arranged marriage.

The so-called honour killing of 18-year-old Saman Abbas, who went missing in April 2021, shocked Italy.

Her father, Shabbar Abbas, was convicted by the court in the northern city of Reggio Emilia along with the victim's mother, who remains at large.

 A tribunal in Reggio Emilia ruled that the parents ordered the murder, and that an uncle had strangled his niece. The uncle was sentenced to 14 years after accepting a plea bargain, while two cousins were acquitted in an affair which shocked the country. The verdict was at a court of first instance and can be appealed.

Shabbar Abbas, who was extradited from Pakistan in August, professed his innocence during a tearful statement to the court before deliberations. The uncle, Danish Hasnain, was turned over by French authorities while the cousins were arrested in Spain. The four men were present at the trial, but the mother, Nazia Shaheen, is still a fugitive.

"This trial is not complete. I too want to know who killed my daughter," Shabbar Abbas told the court, according to Italian media reports.

Shabbar Abbas had been extradited to Italy in August to face trial after he was arrested in his village in eastern Pakistan on suspicion of murder. His wife is believed to be in hiding in Pakistan.

The remains of Saman Abbas were found near her family home in the town of Novellara in November 2022, some 18 months after she went missing. She was eventually identified by her dental records.

Saman Abbas, pictured wearing red lipstick and a red headband, has become one of the symbols of public concern in Italy over violence against women by family members or partners.

The killing last month of a university student and the arrest of her ex-boyfriend for the crime prompted a wave of demonstrations in towns and cities across Italy.

Prosecutors said the family of Saman Abbas was angered when they found out she had a boyfriend in Italy. They alleged that she was killed when she returned to the family home to collect some documents after living nearby for a while under the care of social services.

An autopsy revealed the young woman had a broken neck bone, possibly caused by strangulation. She had emigrated as a teenager from Pakistan to a farm town, Novellara, in Italy’s northern region of Emilia-Romagna.

She quickly embraced Western ways, including shedding her headscarf and dating a young man of her choice. In one social media post, she and her Pakistani boyfriend were shown kissing on a street in the regional capital, Bologna.

According to Italian investigators, Saman had denounced her parents to the police and social workers placed her in a shelter in November 2020. But she visited her family in April 2021, planning to pick up her passport and start a new life with her boyfriend, whom her family disapproved of.

She disappeared soon after, and police, alerted by the boyfriend, raided the family home in May but the parents had already left for Pakistan.

The young woman was probably killed the night of April 30 to May 1, according to surveillance camera footage showing five people leaving the family home with shovels, crowbars and buckets, before returning two and a half hours later.