Author: Terri Judd
Publication: Independent
Date: August 8, 2003
Yasmin Akhtar endured violent hatred
from her elderly husband's family for more than a decade before she fled
and secured a divorce. When she submitted a financial claim for £250,000,
Fethaullah Mohammed, her husband's son from his first wife, decided she
should be silenced for good.
In March last year Ms Akhtar, 35,
was dragged screaming from her home and throttled with parcel tape, before
her body was soaked in petrol and set alight. Her death was one of a growing
number of so-called "honour killings", which involve the murder of a woman
who is believed to have betrayed the honour of her family or community.
Mohammed along with three
friends he enlisted to help for £10,000 is now beginning a
life sentence for the "brutal and determined" murder that he committed.
The Old Bailey was told that Ms
Akhtar had been brought from Pakistan at the age of 21 and married Mohammed
Jamil, who was her senior by more than 30 years. They stayed together for
12 years but Ms Akhtar had said she suffered violence and animosity from
the family. Eventually, in the summer of 2000, she fled the family home
in Balham, south London, for a women's refuge before filing for divorce.
The family of Mr Jamil, a property owner, reacted furiously, threatening
Ms Akhtar's relatives in Pakistan and producing forged divorce papers in
an attempt to prove the marriage was bigamous and not binding.
But in November 2000 the marriage
was dissolved by a court in Croydon and Ms Akhtar moved to a secret address
in Redhill, Surrey. Two months later she submitted a financial claim for
£250,000.
"There is an attitude which some
men possess, perhaps born out of a cultural mindset, where a Muslim woman
from a modest background is brought to England and upon marriage should
quite simply know her place," said Aftab Jafferjee, for the prosecution.
"In this case, she had become a troublesome woman, threatening their financial
status."
Fethaullah Mohammed, 42, enlisted
Rupert Alleyne, 43, David Quarry, 38, and Paul Bush, 34, to do the "dirty
work", the court was told. They tracked down Ms Akhtar to her new home
in March last year. Neighbours heard the woman's screams as petrol was
poured through her letterbox, forcing her out of the flat. She was bundled
into a blacked-out Chrysler people carrier and "delivered" to Fethaullah
Mohammed's shop in south-east London.
When she refused to drop the settlement
claim, he strangled her with parcel tape. Bush, Alleyne and Quarry took
her body to Larkhall Park, Stockwell, wrapped in a carpet which they set
on fire that evening.
Judge Christopher Moss told Fethaullah
Mohammed: "Your father's second wife had become a thorn in your family's
side. You decided she had to be silenced and silenced forever. You did
so for financial reasons, you did so out of greed, you did so in a way
that can only be described as brutal and determined."
Bush became involved at a late stage.
Detectives classed the murder as
one of a growing tide of "honour killings", a phenomenon found among predominantly
Asian or Middle Eastern communities. They are defined as incidents in which
a woman is killed "for her actual or perceived immoral behaviour" in order
to protect the honour of her family or community. Last February, Anita
Gindha, 22, who was heavily pregnant, was strangled to death in her home
in Manor Park, east London.
Detectives examined the theory that
she too had been a victim of an "honour killing" after it emerged she had
rejected an arranged marriage three years earlier.
Fethaullah Mohammed, of Balham;
Alleyne, of Fulham; Quarry, of Woolwich; and Bush, of Worcester Park, Surrey,
had denied murder and kidnapping. Each was jailed for life, with 15 years
concurrent for false imprisonment on 1 August, but the verdicts and sentences
could not be reported until yesterday.
The court was told that Mohammed
had been jailed for 18 months in 1989 for blackmail and Alleyne had been
sentenced to six years in 1995 for obtaining property by deception. Quarry,
who has a record of violence that started in the early 1980s, had twice
been jailed for inflicting grievous bodily harm, and once for assault causing
actual bodily harm.
Mr Jamil, 67, originally stood trial
with the four men, accused of kidnap and murder, but was discharged after
suffering a stroke and collapsing in the dock. He faces retrial next year.
