EPISODE 42 - The Shafia Honour Killings

I'll buy some spinach . I don't like spinach .

You click on that link and then it basically takes you to that platform and allows you to listen to the episodes that you couldn't previously listen to , and it is as simple as that .

So lately , I said to Claire the other day , I've been getting a lot of you know when you get those sort of impulses and you think I'll go and shut that door but you don't quite know why .

Or like a gut feeling , yeah , yeah , Like where you think I better move that coffee cup because I've just got a feeling that someone's going to knock it off the table or something .

So if I get a feeling to like move that carp or you know , I'll move something out the way , because Lewis has just walked in with like a football under his arm and I think I bet he's going to kick that and if that gets knocked over it's going to break . Yeah , a bit of forethought .

And when it went up to bed , shut the bedroom door and for some reason I just had the urge to lock the bedroom door , which , like I said , I've never done . So I just thought do you know what ? I've got that urge , I'm just going to lock it .

So I locked the bedroom door and I thought when Claire gets up in the morning and goes to work , she's going to get the door open . So , yeah , so I did that , went to bed . In the middle of the night Claire woke up to someone banging on our bedroom door . Oh , stop it , I kid you not . Yeah , banging on our bedroom door .

Claire being Claire , just thought I must have imagined it . Yeah , but freaked her out and she went back to sleep , woke up the next morning and I was like oh , how did you sleep , darling ? And she went fine , but someone banged on our bedroom door and I was like what ?

I didn't hear anything and she said , no , it woke me up , oh gosh , and I was like no way . I wonder if I locked the bedroom door because I had the feeling that someone was going to come in , but it was so clear and obvious .

It didn't wake me up and yeah , we came downstairs and Claire was like , oh , I didn't want to come down in case there had been someone in the house . But yeah , there was like no signs of anything else . We looked at . We've got , obviously , like security cameras in the house that we put on to signal if there's like movement in the house .

When we're all in bed , checked all the cameras , absolutely nothing , do you think ?

So it's great to get listener feedback and what stories do you wanna hear and things . And then we can write about those . So I said to Josie what story , what sort of story do you wanna hear ? And she said she would like to hear a story of honor killings . Ooh , so I done some research and I found a story .

There are a lot of stories , but I found one that that we're gonna cover today , and it is the Shafia Honor Killings . Now I'm gonna put a warning out there

. This is there's a lot of information in this story that is to do with religion and culture , and I am not educated on a religion or culture . I have no opinions on any of the topics , and if I get anything wrong , then it's pure ignorance and in no way meant as an offense to anybody .

So I think he left school in the seventh grade so that he could then be the man of the house and start earning , and although he was poorly educated , he became an entrepreneur , entrepreneur , entrepreneur .

He proved that he was adept at the electronic repairs and he was soon able to open a larger shop and he turned out that he had a knack for making deals and making money .

He was a very adept businessman and his specialties were Panasonic radios and a brand of thermoses called Peacock thermoses and he shipped them over from Japan and then sold them in his stores and he was making a lot of money . In 1979 , it was arranged that 24-year-old Mohamed would marry 17-year-old Rona .

She was a very attractive , pretty girl and she was the daughter of a retired army colonel and it was thought that Mohamed's mum arranged the pair because they would be a good match .

So , through Mohamed's mother , the pair met briefly just to give consent on the marriage and Mohamed readily agreed and Rona actually said to her father give me away in marriage if he is a good man , don't if he is not . You'd hope that would be the case for all of them .

Mohamed for years , herself and Mohamed tried to have children and they actually even travelled to India for fertility treatments . Mohamed believed that the care in India was a lot better than in Afghan , and I say he had a lot of money , so he paid for repeated fertility treatments , but nothing worked .

Mohamed began to hear jokes from his business associates and from his acquaintances , his friends and his family , and people would ridicule him for his failure to impregnate his wife and he started becoming the butt of people's jokes and people were saying that maybe there was something wrong with him .

And it was at this time that he started turning quite nasty towards Rona and she wrote in her diary my husband started picking on me . He wouldn't allow me to go visit my mother and at home he would find fault with my cooking and serving meals and he would find excuses to harass me .

Rona's younger sister , huma , arrived on an overnight visit one evening and she was sitting with Rona when Mohamed came into the room and snapped at his wife and he said you're a land without crops , you cannot give me kids . And Rona's sister she said Mohamed , she said you shouldn't say these kinds of things to my sister .

And what she said was actually that this was from God . This wasn't her fault and this wasn't his fault . This was what God had planned . And Rona also . You know she didn't want to be spoken to like that . She said to Mohamed please don't say these things in front of my sister .

And Mohamed's reaction was to step forward and start hitting Rona in the face and she horrified her sister , retreated to her room , she got out of the situation and she went to her room and she didn't confront Mohamed about it and she never again spent the night at her sister's home .

For her it was a case of this was kind of custom and she wasn't to meddle in anybody else's affair . If this is what was going on then that wasn't down to her . Finally , after 10 years of trying to have a baby , Rona was at a wit's end and she told Mohamed , go and take another wife . What can I do ? And so he did .

Sharia law in Afghanistan allows for polygamy , and it's that it actually states that Afghan men can take up to four wives , as Islam allows for . Such A man must treat all of his wives equally and a polygamy actually . When I was looking it up it was quite interesting . So polygamy started because of the war .

So there was an influx of widowed women , and a widowed wife was not permitted to keep her children unless she remarried . So there wasn't as many men to go around because they had all died in the war . So therefore . So that's how it changed that law . It was deemed that women weren't fit to look after children , that the man .

They had to have a man in the household to look after the children . So because obviously there wasn't as many men to go around , it was permitted that a man would have more than one wife . So Muhammad took a second wife and her name was Tuba Ya'a and she was 17 at the time and she was half of Muhammad's age , so he was now 34 .

Rona wasn't unhappy about this , so it was custom for men to have more than one wife . It took the pressure off of her of having children . I was going to say , yeah , maybe she was like , oh , thank goodness , she actually planned the wedding for the couple at the same reception .

The reception took place at the same place that their wedding had done previously , so there was no sort of bitterness on our sinus or anything like that .

And within weeks of the wedding , tuba was pregnant with their first child , a little baby girl called Zaynab , and it was the baby her new husband had been trying for for 10 years , a baby that he'd wanted so badly .

At home , rona played the beautiful role of surrogate mother and she helped Tuba take care of little Zaynab , and she would also do all the chores that a housewife would do . And early on Rona said that she felt that Tuba was the preferred wife and she was younger , but by quite a lot .

She was incredibly fertile and she gave Muhammad a child that he'd wanted so dearly . But she was also very manipulating and she was also very conniving , so she would do whatever she could to kind of worm her way and be the head wife .

Rona wrote in her diary that Tuba had schemed to gradually separate her from their shared spouse , and she also wrote that after their second child , hamid , was born in December 1990 , that happiness left her .

Muhammad was now only sleeping with Tuba and they used Rona as a living maid and nanny , and she was deeply unhappy Until a third child came along , a little girl called Sahar , and she came along in October 1991 .

And it was a rare moment of joy for Rona because Tuba actually Tuba was obviously the child's mother . She gifted the baby to Rona and she allowed Rona to raise her as her own , so she now kind of felt that she had this purpose , instead of just being used as a nanny and a servant . Really she had this little baby , sahar , to take care of .

Around this time in 1992 , while Sahar was still a very small baby , life in Afghanistan had become quite dangerous for the family . There were now six of them , so the three children and the three adults . The Afghan civil war had crossed over into the capital and hundreds of people were being killed .

So Muhammad decided to take his family over to Pakistan , where it was deemed that it would be safer for them , while in Pakistan a fourth and fifth child was born . Now their names have been protected by a publication ban , so they're not released at all . We have no idea what the children's names are , but they are imperative in the story .

So they will be child A and child B . So in 1996 , a sixth child was born , a little girl called Geeti , and after she was born the family started packing yet again to move from Pakistan . He moved his six children and two wives to Dubai . In Dubai , muhammad set up a new business , trade and Electronics , and it was incredibly successful .

The family were very , very wealthy . He could take care of his two wives . He could take care of his six children , so it wasn't an issue . When baby number seven came along , goodness , now , this was another little girl and her name is also protected by the publication ban . So she will be child C .

The Shafia family operated in a very traditional Afghan manner , with Muhammad as the unquestioned ruler who must be obeyed in all things . But their life in Dubai had given the family and the children a taste of Western culture .

Tuba had learned to drive and that was something that Afghan women absolutely didn't do and all of the children were enrolled at a private American school . They wore uniforms , they learned to speak fluent English and also interacted from children around the world .

So their eyes were open to a very , very different way of life , something completely different from the traditional , strict Afghan life that their father tried to impose on them .

So Rona was very often kind of sidelined , so she was just being treated as a slave . Really . At one point , muhammad had dreamed of moving his family from Dubai to New Zealand . He wanted somewhere that could give him permanent citizenship . Instead of just living in a place that kind of gave him residency .

He wanted to settle down somewhere where he would be a citizen . So he wanted to travel to New Zealand and apply for the citizenship . But unfortunately Rona didn't pass the required medical test .

So , as you can imagine , rona felt the full brunt of her husband's wrath and she wrote in her diary whatever I did , if I sat down , if I got up , if I ate , there was blame and censor attached to it and she said , in short , he had made life a torture for me .

So , with their plans foiled to get citizenship in New Zealand , the family stayed and lived in Dubai for almost 10 years . So it was now 2007, . The children are aged between 11 and 18 .

Muhammad decided to move his family to Canada because at that time , the province of Quebec had an immigrant investor scheme and it allowed applicants to buy their way into Canada for $400,000 . That's pretty much all they had to do and he had no trouble affording that . He actually paid most of it in cash .

The only issue with moving to Canada was that polygamy was illegal and Muhammad had two wives , so had he filled out the application as it stood , they would not have been granted citizenship in Canada . So when they filled out the visa application , muhammad listed just one wife . Oh , let me guess which one ? Hmm , tuva .

He listed Rona as a cousin and a living nanny for the children , and their visa was granted . Upon moving to Canada , muhammad purchased a $2 million strip mall and a $900,000 piece of land upon which he had planned to build their dream home . While it was being built , the family of 10 were crammed into a four bedroom , two bathroom rental accommodation .

Now they stayed there for two years . Oh we've , we've . That's how long it was taken to build that home . There were no beds in the property . They've slept on a brown sleeping mat . That was the custom in Afghan , and there was hardly any furniture in the house and it was almost as if it was like a prison Sounds lovely .

Rona slept in a bedroom with Geeti and Sahar . There was only enough room really for their sleeping mats to be kind of side by side in the room . The brothers Hamid and B shared another bedroom , as did Zainab and her younger sister A . The youngest child C slept with Tuba and Muhammad in their master bedroom .

Most nights , though , it was just Tuba and Child C , because Muhammad actually spent most of his time away on business in Dubai . During their two years staying in Canada , muhammad only spent a total of six months in Canada . The rest of the time he was away on business .

Now , this was incredibly difficult for the children , having been raised mostly in Dubai , at an American school with very Western culture . The girls weren't allowed to talk to boys , even at school . That was a surefire way to destroy the family's honour and reputation .

He wouldn't allow the girls to wear makeup and he wanted them to always wear the hijab , which was confusing for the girls because he allowed his wife Tuba to not wear her hijab so he would make Rona wear it and the girls but his wife . So he allowed her to drive a car and he allowed her to kind of wear all this expensive jewellery and stuff .

So it was as though he was kind of picking and choosing which customs suited his lifestyle . Yeah , but Muhammad was very strict and abusive with the girls , both mentally and physically , so they tried to adhere to the unrealistic expectations that were expected of them While he was away on his business trips their eldest son , hamid .

He was left to enforce the house rules While Muhammad was away . Hamid was the man of the house . He was his father's eyes , ears and fists , and he did this with the help of child A and child B . They would act as a spy for him .

So they were incredibly loyal to their brother and their father and their Afghanistan roots and everything that they tried to live by . And Hamid was just as abusive as his father and he took pleasure in trying to catch the girls breaking the rules , especially the rules concerning boys .

18 year old Zaynab , 16 year old Sahar and 13 year old Geeti were normal teenage girls and wanted to act as normal teenage girls did . They were living in Canada , they went to a mainstream school and they wanted to kind of fit in . They just wanted to be like everybody else , so they wanted to wear makeup and fashionable clothing .

They didn't want to have to cover up and wear the hijab . They wanted to talk to boys and they wanted to have boyfriends . They went to an integrated school so they couldn't avoid talking to boys , so they were forced to hide it and sneak around , which obviously wasn't easy at all .

Zaynab and her younger brother , hamid , actually attended the same school and he noticed when a young Pakistani classmate called Amar started giving Zaynab attention In February 2008, . Amar sent Zaynab a Valentine's Day email and her response to this email actually signifies the level that she had to try and kind of sneak around and hide things .

And she wrote to Amar I'm going to say it how she wrote it because it's 2008 and she cut like cuss instead of the cuss and all very teenage mannerisms .

So she put be aware of my bro , if my bro is around at like a complete stranger , we'll talk if my bro is not around , because I don't want to give him the slightest idea that we are friends and that R is just an R . So that was kind of the level that she had to hide things that nobody was allowed to see them together .

So Amar obviously stuck to the ploy , but it didn't last long . Barely a month after that email , while both of her parents were away visiting Dubai and Hamid was out of the house for the day , zaynab daringly invited her new boyfriend to the house , oh , unaware that Hamid was actually on his way home .

When Hamid arrived , he found a terrified Amar hiding in the garage and he calmly shook his hand and asked him to leave . This act was not in keeping with her father's idealisms of honour . Zaynab never returned to that school and for the next 10 months she was banished to her room . She wasn't allowed to leave the house .

If she did leave the house , she had to be escorted with a relative . She was not trusted at all . 10 months , 10 months how old was she ? 18 . Oh my God . She was under strict house arrest because she had brought dishonour on the family . Rona was also living her own version of hell , under the tyranny of Tuba and Muhammad .

They often beat her and threatened her , and they always reminded her of her place in the house . She was the servant . In April 2008 , rona , who wasn't allowed to use the phone in the house , started using a pay phone near her home , so she would go out for a walk and find this pay phone .

She would often call her family and she would detail the abuse to them , and she told them how trapped she was . Muhammad had all of her ID documents and she couldn't get a divorce because divorce was dishonourable and also in Canada she wasn't married . They hadn't declared that she was married to Muhammad .

So had she opted for divorce , the whole family could have faced deportation . One relative was so concerned about Rona that she put her in touch with another distant family member , and this family member was an Afghan women's rights advocate and it was a helpline called Women for Women in Afghan .

But this act was not in keeping with her husband's idealisms of honour . What happened in the home stayed in the home . So Rona would call up this helpline at least three times a week . She said that her husband would humiliate her and beat her up often .

The helpline tried to encourage her to take classes to learn something , but Rona said that she was not allowed to do that . Muhammad told Rona that if she ever left he would kill her and as miserable as she was in the house . She loved the children . She obviously was there for their births , and especially the girls .

They had a very tight bond and she was the more caring and motherly towards them . Meanwhile , 16 year old Sahar was also struggling . Her mother , tuba , had accused her of kissing a boy . She even went so far as to storm into the school and corner one of Sahar's teachers .

She was very aggressive , she was very abusive and she told the teacher that she did not accept her daughter kissing a boy and that it did not fall within the parameters of her values . Mortified , depressed and suicidal , sahar decided that she did not want to live this life anymore , so she tried to commit suicide .

When Rona and Geeti found out what Sahar had done , they were hysterical and they obviously they rushed to be with her and Rona later , recording her diary that Tuba did not even budge from the kitchen and that her words were she can go to hell , let her kill herself .

Her younger sister , geeti , though , refused to obey her mother's instructions . She was great , this little Geeti . She was a little rebel .

The constant barrage of abuse from her mother , brother and father and the silent treatment of her other siblings was too much for Sahar to handle and one day at school she broke down in tears to her vice principal and she told him all about her home life and the abuse she suffered . This act was not in keeping with her father's idealisms of honour .

On hearing the allegations , her teacher followed protocol and phoned child protective services . Sahar was absolutely terrified and before they could even speak to her properly , they kind of phoned her to say you know , this is what we're going to do . She shut down and she just recanted everything that she said .

She denied everything and she just kept saying to them please don't tell my parents , please don't tell my parents . But they had to follow protocol also . So they phoned home .

A meeting was arranged for the family at the school and Tuber arrived first with Zaynab , who was still under house arrest at this time for her own wrongdoings , and they both denied all of the allegations . They even denied that Sahar would try to commit suicide . Zaynab obviously agreed with whatever Tuber was saying . She didn't want to get in any more trouble .

She did say , however , to child protective services that Sahar was a little bit sad about having to wear her hijab , which was an understatement . A little while later , a fuming of Hamid and Hamid arrived at the school next and the officer described him as being incredibly angry and he demanded to know the source of the lies .

But child protective services said that they can't divulge where the allegations had come from . But Hamid said that he would contact his lawyer in order to get the source . He was absolutely like a thing possessed . He was fuming . A few months after her 19th birthday , zaynab was finally released from her house arrest .

She was allowed to go back to school , although it was a different school from the one that she'd met Amar . She was no longer allowed at that school . They hadn't seen each other the whole 10 months of her isolation , but she'd never forgotten about him During a rare moment alone . She emailed her old boyfriend and she said I miss you bad .

I still remember the way you told me you loved me the first time .

By the beginning of 2009 , they were desperate to see each other and they began sneaking visits to see each other and would often meet up with Sahar and her new boyfriend , ricardo , who was a 21 year old Spanish student and he was four years , her senior , sahar , told Ricardo that her parents didn't know about their relationship and she said quote the day her

parents knew she would be a dead woman . The only people that knew about the relationship was her older sister , zaynab , and her younger sister , geetie .

13 year old , geetie was . She was like a different breed . She was completely different from her mother and father and her other siblings . She was purposely rebellious . She hadn't lived any of her life in Afghanistan . She had grown up with her privileged private American education in Dubai .

She did not care a single bit for her father's conservative views and she also did not care if he knew it . She wore makeup , she wore revealing clothes , she skipped school and she was even caught stealing . This act was not in keeping with her father's idealisms of no , you don't say .

Geetie was often the brunt of Mohammed's rage and would frequently beat her for her behavior , oftentimes enlisting the help of her brother Hamid . They would just like team up . Zaynab could no longer stand to watch the abuse that was being dished out to her siblings on a daily basis , but she had no power at all to change the situation .

So , while her father was away in Dubai on business , she made the daring move to run away , and she left a note for her brother to find that simply read I would like to live my own life . Upon finding his sister gone and a note left , hamid called the police to report his sister missing .

However , when they realized that she was almost 20 and she'd left the note , the police weren't willing at all to send out a search party . Good but Mohammed , the news of his daughter's betrayal was too much to handle and he's later quoted as saying my adult daughter was out in the world , unsupervised , unrestrained .

She could be having sex and even if she wasn't , people would think that , which is just as bad , not for her . The days I have left . April 17 , 2009, . News of her running away had reached her other siblings at school .

The four of them at this school was Sahar , geeti and child A and B were so terrified of their father's reaction that , instead of going home , they went to a complete stranger's house and asked him to phone the police .

An officer was dispatched to the location of the stranger's house and found the children standing on a street corner , too afraid to go home , fearing their father's reaction . The children were escorted home by the officer , but not before each one of them had been questioned about their home life .

So child A and child B , although they were afraid of their father , they were very loyal and they kind of played down the level of violence in the house . But Geeti and Sahar told the officers hands down what was happening . They told the officers about the beatings that they had suffered at the hands of their father and brother .

They told the officers that they also wanted to leave home because they were definitely afraid of their father , as he threatened to kill them quite regularly . So once again , child social services were called .

Each child was interviewed along with the parents , but the children were found not to be in imminent danger and therefore not removed from their abusive household , and the case was eventually closed . Susanna had actually run away to a women's refuge , but while she was there , rona had overheard a conversation between Muhammad , hamid and Tuba .

That shocked her , and she heard Muhammad telling the other two I will go to Afghanistan , I will prepare the documents , I will sell my property and I will kill Zainab . And Hamid replied what about the other one ? And Muhammad said I will kill the other one too .

Rona was sure that the other one was her and she phoned her sister and told her of the conversation , but her sister assured Rona that she was safe and that she said Don't be afraid , this is not Afghanistan , this is not Dubai , this is Canada . Nothing will happen .

This is all very customary . Javed wanted to meet Amar to make sure that he was suitable for his niece Zainab , and he was shocked , however , when Muhammad instead said he had a request for him .

He had a plan to murder Zainab , and during the telephone call he frequently called his daughter a prostitute and a whore , and he outlined his plan to murder Zainab and regain his honor .

He asked Javed , who lived in Sweden , to throw a pre-wedding party , and told him to invite the family over to Sweden , and there they would plan a picnic near some water and they would throw Zainab in and drown her . Javed was rightly horrified . He swore at . Muhammad told him he would never go along with the plan .

He hung up the phone , and then he immediately rang his sister , tuba , to warn her of Muhammad's intentions . Tuba kindly thanked her brother for the warning , and that was that .

Despite this , zainab fully intended to marry Amar , despite warnings from her family about the dishonor it would bring Zainab fully intended to marry Amar , and the day finally arrived for their marriage May 18th 2009 . Zainab , her hair and makeup done , her hands henered up , walked down the aisle with her new husband .

His family , though , also did not agree to the marriage and therefore did not show up at the wedding at all . So none of the groom's family arrived at the wedding . So the whole , the shame of the whole affair was too much for Tuba and she fainted right there at the wedding .

And Zainab saw how distressed her mother was and she told her mother if you do not agree , I will reject this boy . By the next morning , the pair were divorced . The marriage lasted 24 hours . This level of dishonor carried a massive death sentence for Zainab .

So once Muhammad was phoned and informed of the shamble marriage and then the plan for them to marry Zainab off and then regain some honour , he told Tuba if he had been at the wedding he would have killed her then and there . While this was going on , sahar and Ricardo were still carrying on their secret love . However , it didn't remain secret for very long .

Hamid , the brother , found pictures of the couple on Sahar's phone and he printed them off and immediately boarded a flight to Dubai to inform his father of his sister's dishonourable behaviour . This also carried a death sentence for Sahar . Geeti was also out of control . She was incredibly rebellious . She hardly ever went to school .

She was failing all of her classes . She wasn't quiet about the abuse that she suffered at home and she certainly would not keep quiet if any of her siblings were to disappear . This would also be a death sentence for Geeti .

Their searches were mountings on water in Quebec , rent a boat in Montreal , facts , documentaries on murders . Where to commit a murder . On June 22nd , muhammad purchased a used black Nissan 2004 . The next afternoon , the trunk was packed , ready for the family summer vacation . Don't do it , don't do it , don't do it .

As far as the children and Roanah knew , they were going on a road trip to Vancouver or Niagara Falls or somewhere else , and that was all they was told . The destination was never clear , so much of the journey will never really be truly known , but what is known is that the family were split between two cars .

So the new car that was purchased the 2004 black Nissan Sentra and the Lexus , which was a very expensive car and they started their journey shortly after 3pm on June 23rd , and they headed straight to Grand Remus . What is it called ? Grand R ? E ?

Sahar , who was never without her phone , snapped a photo of Geetie holding one of the dogs , and Shafia and Hamid took a walk . They don't know where they went . All of this is known from the text messages and photos that are on Sahar's phone , as she'd been secretly sending them to Ricardo throughout the trip .

The journey is planned out based on the Sahar's phone records pinging backwards and forwards . That's how they knew the route that was taken After stopping at Grand-Romeau . Was that where it was ? Grand-romeau ?

While there , the family enjoyed a four-day stay at their destination and they checked out of the hotel , which was called the Days Inn . On June 29th .

A surveillance camera in the lobby recorded Hamid paying for the bill for both rooms , and they left the Days Inn at 8pm that day , on the 29th of June , which for a 15-hour journey home , how would you leave at ?

If I've done my research correctly , I can guarantee your research will be good .

Now in the Lexus is now Muhammad , hamid and children A , b and C and Chuba got out of the Lexus and into the Nissan with Rona , zainab , sahar and Geeti and at 1.30am they were all in varying stages of sleepiness , so they did not question what was going on at all . That is why the family left at 8pm to make sure that everybody was sleepy .

Five minutes away , at the Kingston Eastern Motel , muhammad and Hamid woke up the manager and asked for two rooms for the night . When they were asked how many guests were staying , they couldn't decide . They said six , nine , they settled on six . There were currently 10 of them .

They left the passengers of the Lexus , children A , b and C at the hotel and Hamid and Muhammad made their way back to the locks where Chuba and the Nissan were . When Chuba saw the headlights in the distance , she jumped out of the Nissan and run towards them . The time had come .

The exact events that took place next remains a mystery , but somewhere at that secluded lock . The four women , zaynab , sahar , rona and Geeti , were held underwater and drowned one by one . Three of them all but Sahar , had bruises on top of their heads , suggesting that they had been hit over the head beforehand .

And the four women dead , or at least unconscious , were piled back into the Nissan with the seats reclined . With everybody now in position and the engine of the car running , one of the three opened the driver's side window and got out of the car .

They then reached through the open driver's side window , moved the gear of the car into first and assumed that the car the momentum of the car would roll off the edge of the lock and into the canal below . But that didn't happen . The front wheels went over the edge , but nothing else .

So the car and the women inside teetered dangerously on the edge of the lock . Their meticulously planned murder was not going to plan , so the three came up with a new plan they would drive the Lexus into the back of the Nissan and ram it over the edge . The collision caused the Nissan to plunge headfirst into the water below with all four of its passengers .

The collision also smashed the front light of the Lexus , leaving shattered glass all over the ground . But before Scarpa in the scene , the three , muhammad Hamid and Tuba , picked up as much glass as they could and put it in the boot of the Lexus . At 7.55am , hamid called the police from near their home in Montreal , just hours after the Nissan had sunk .

He reported a single car fender bender in an empty parking lot near their house and he told the responding cop they'd accidentally smashed the left front end of the Lexus into a yellow utility pole . At 8.30am , he phoned the Kingston Eastern Motel and spoke to his father .

He then dialed Sahar's cell , knowing full well that it was submerged in the canal , and he called it multiple times , knowing that he would never get an answer . Hamid was then behind the wheel of the family's green Pontiac minivan speeding back towards Kingston .

So he'd taken the Lexus to Montreal , dropped it off and then came back to Kingston where the rest of the family were Now reunited with his mother and father . It was now time to start part two of the plan , which was the missing persons report .

The trio left the children and walked into the police station just after 12pm , having had no sleep for the past 24 hours , and they reported all four members of their family missing . However , police were already on scene at the locks .

The Park Ranger had spotted the car in the water and had called the police , and it didn't take long before the police station where they'd just been to report the missing family connected the dots and they then informed the trio that all four members of the family had been found dead , and autopsy confirmed that all four women had died of drowning .

None of them had been found to be wearing a seatbelt and the driver's side window was down .

Specialist Lake Divers said it was immediately suspicious , but what they would normally find is that people would still be strapped in the car if they had gone over the edge , because people were tangled in their seatbelts trying to get out , and sometimes they even found people stuck in the window that had been trying to get out .

The story was that they had stopped in Kingston early that morning because his wife , tuber , who had been driving the Nissan , was feeling dizzy and needed to sleep . So she waited with quote the ones who are no longer , as Mohammed said . Well , he and Hamid went searching for a place to sleep .

When the Nissan rejoined them at the motel , hamid had left for Montreal in quotes to work on the building or something , and everyone else went to bed . And that's when Zainab and Sahar asked for the keys to retrieve some clothes from the trunk .

Their story was that Zainab , with no licence and no permission , took the car with her sisters and Rona for a deadly spin . That detective saw through that straightaway . They asked Mohammed where Tuber had stopped in Kingston , while him and Hamid looked for a room .

But Mohammed obviously couldn't tell them where they'd stopped because that would give away the precise location that the car had gone into the canal , and he was supposed to know that . Now I couldn't find any audio of the police interviews , but I do have a transcript so I will read it for you .

And he said I don't know the place exactly because I'm not familiar here , but it was somewhere in the city , not off the highway . From there we got the hotel . My wife arrived at the hotel , we stopped the car and there was nothing else . And the detective said how did your wife know which hotel to go to ?

And Mohammed replies you know , the distance was little . So the officer says what do you think happened , mohammed ? And he said I just woke up in the morning and didn't see them . That is all . I don't know anything else . And the detective says you know the car . Your car , the Nissan , was found underwater . And Mohammed says you said that .

And the detective says any thoughts on how it got there ? Any idea ? Yeah , there are all sorts of places , okay . And Muhammad replies no , no , no , not at all , because this is the first time such an incident has befallen me . And as the detective left the interview room he saw Muhammad checking his watch .

When asked why he went to Montreal , his reasons varied from something personal to I forgot my laptop to even saying you don't feel like staying at one place with your parents . You know right .

Officers told Hamid that there had been an eyewitness and the eyewitness was an eight year old boy and that he had seen two cars down at the lock , a big one and a small one , and that only the big one drove away .

When confronted with the fact that there was an eyewitness , hamid still maintained that he did not know what had happened down at the lock and he seemed shocked to find out that there had been an eyewitness . And the detective told Hamid that they were going to check out the Lexus just to see if there was any damage on the car .

When Tuba was interviewed , she was able to tell police that she parked somewhere and waited for the two men to find a place to stay . Well , hand in here .

She acted more like it was just the car that had gone into the water and not her family . There was a lot to the transcript , I didn't put it all in , but the officer kept trying to say to her you know , if my family had died , if three of my daughters had died ?

And she kept trying to plead with her about the fact that she was a mother and that three of her children were now dead . But she just didn't show any emotion at all and they got about as much out of her as they had the other two men .

They eventually brought Hamid back into the interview room after finding damage on the Lexus and he told them , like he'd phoned up and reported it before , that he had hit a pole and that he didn't want his dad to find out . And they left him in the interview room for 18 minutes .

During this time alone , the detective went out and they watched him and during the 18 minutes he flexed his biceps , he looked through his wallet and he even picked his nose . He just had no concerns at all .

So police on the scene , at the locks , found the broken glass from the Lexus and although the three thought they'd picked it up , they hadn't picked up everything , and they managed to match it up to the fragments that had been handily left in the boot of the Lexus .

But that wasn't proof enough that the Lexus had pushed the car into the locks or anything like that .

So on the 18th of July , which was 17 days after the girl's death , the police decided to tell all three that they were coming through CCTV footage from that night . There was no cameras at the site , but they didn't know that . Yay . But the judge had authorized use of wiretap .

So while they were at the station being told this , police were fitting bugs into the minivan and when the trio climbed back into the van , the police were immediately eavesdropping . Muhammad said they're lying . If there was a camera , they'd have accessed it in a minute , and Tuber agreed . She said there was no camera over there .

I looked around , there wasn't any . If , god forbid , god forbid , there was one in that little room , all three of us would have been recorded . Hamid was driving . He said that night there was no electricity there , everywhere was pitch darkness . Muhammad , you remember , don't you Tuber ? And she says yes .

So he's already confirmed that all three of them were there . At one point in this conversation , Hamid actually warned his parents that police quote can fasten something to record your voice . Oh , what a knob . But they kept talking anyway . Hamid was heard saying to hell with them and their boyfriends , filthy and rotten children . Over the next three days .

Police would record Muhammad cursing his dead daughters and basket in their demise . He was a good father , he said , a liberal who took on drudgery for them . And yet they betrayed him and undressed themselves in front of boys and acted like whores .

If we remain alive one night or one year , we have no tension in our hearts thinking that our daughter is in the arms of this or that boy , in the arms of this or that man . And then he said may the devil shit on their graves . Oh , that's a bit strong , isn't it , jesus ?

During another conversation , tuber agreed that Zainab was already done but wished the other two were not . But Muhammad said no , tuber , they messed up . There was no other way . They were treacherous . They betrayed both themselves and us . This was enough for the police .

So the next afternoon , july 21st , officers arrived at the Shafia residence with a search warrant and child welfare workers . So , for their own safety , childs A , b and C were removed from the home and placed in protective care .

On January 29th 2012 , after 15 hours of deliberation , a jury found 58 year old Muhammad , 41 year old Tuber and 21 year old Hamid guilty of four counts of first degree murder . In Canada , first degree murder verdicts carry an automatic sentence of life without the possibility of parole for 25 years .

The judge's final words to the family before their incarceration were the apparent reasons behind these cold , blooded , shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honor , a notion of honor that is founded on the domination and control of women , a sick notion of honor that was absolutely no place in any civilized society .

So honor killings is the murder of an individual , either an outsider or a member of a family , by someone seeking to protect what they see is the dignity and honor of themselves or their family .

Most often , it involves the murder of a woman or a girl by male family members due to the perpetrator's belief that the victim has brought dishonor or shame upon the family , name , reputation or prestige .

Examples of how women can bring dishonor to the family include having premarital , extramarital or post marital sex , refusing to enter into an arranged marriage , seeking a divorce or separation , engaging in interfaith relations or relations with persons from a different caste , being the victim of a sexual crime , dressing in clothing , jewellery or accessories that are associated

with sexual deviance , engaging in a relationship in spite of moral marriage impediments or bans , and homosexuality . It is estimated that there are some 5000 cases of honor killings a year , with many , many going unreported , and they happen all over the world , but are more prevalent in Islamic countries such as Afghanistan , pakistan , yemen , jordan and Egypt .

In Pakistan alone , between 1998 and 2003 , it was reported that there were 4,101 honor killings . Crimes in the name of honor are considered justified and so receive a lesser punishment if conceptualized to be honor crimes . So the Shafia family are still in prison currently .

Yeah , I don't say to Claire oh , when we're going out with my friends , you need to act this way and you need to dress this like this and don't say anything about this . Or don't say , because Claire's her own person and I'm my own person .

And then my brain goes oh , you're not speaking .