Warrington Parents Guilty Of Shafilea 'Honour Killing'

3 August 2012, 13:10 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

A couple who killed their “westernized” teenage daughter because they thought she brought shame on the family after been found guilty of her murder. - nine years after the brutal killing.

52 year old Iftikhar Ahmed, and his wife Farzana, 49, of Liverpool Road, Warrington, Cheshire, suffocated Shafilea, 17, with a plastic bag in 2003 in an apparent “honour killing”.

Both have been jailed for life, with minimum term of 25 years.

Shafilea's sister Alesha told the jury at Chester Crown Court her parents pushed Shafilea onto the settee in their house and she heard her mother say "just finish it here" as they forced a plastic bag into the teenager's mouth and killed her in front of their other children.

Shafilea Ahmed was murdered by parents who were obsessed with the idea of family honour.

Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed were two traditionalist disciplinarians who had very fixed ideas about how their children, particularly their daughters, should behave.

If they did not conform to their ways, they would be punished.

That was the way they were brought up in the small village of Uttam, Pakistan, and that was the way they would bring up their children in Warrington, Cheshire.

Shafilea, their eldest daughter, was the first to have her head turned by the ways of the West.

Growing up in the UK, she liked the taste of freedom.

Like most teenage girls she liked make-up, high-heels, clothes and boys, and continually clashed with her parents as she struggled to establish her independence.

It was a fight she would ultimately lose, as Iftikhar and Farzana murdered their first-born child in cold blood in what should have been a safe haven - the family home.

Iftikhar Ahmed stood impassively as the verdicts were given.

Mrs Ahmed wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue.

Their children Junyad, Mevish and the youngest, who cannot be named for legal reasons, all broke down in tears.

Mevish Ahmed put her head in her hands and wept as the judge began discussing sentencing.