Sabia Rani og Shazad Khan
Sabia Rani stammer fra Kashmir i Pakistan, men kom til
Storbritannia i 2005 for å gifte seg med sin fetter, Shazad Khan. Svigerfamilien skal ha mislikt henne fra begynnelsen av. Svigermoren skal ha kjeftet på
henne og skreket til henne for småting. Etter en stund begynte også ektemannen
å slå henne.
Tenåringsbruden snakket ikke engelsk, var aldri utenfor
huset, og kjente ingen andre i Storbritannia enn ektemannens familie.
Rani må ha blitt utsatt for grov, fysisk mishandling i minst
tre uker, men det siste angrepet, som drepte henne, må ha vært ”særdeles
smertefullt og langdrygt” slo retten fast. Blant annet må de 15 benbruddene som ble konstatert på 10 av ribbena hennes ha blitt forårsaket av
gjentatte spark eller kraftige slag.
Ifølge Ranis svigerfamilie har Rani vært plaget av onde
ånder, og i vitneboksen hevdet flere medlemmer av Khans familie at det trolig
var en ond ånd som hadde slått henne til døde. Dommeren anså imidlertid ikke
denne hypotesen for tilstrekkelig bevist, og la til grunn for sin domskjennelse
at ”den onde ånd som drepte Sabia Rani var Shazad Khan”.
‘Family turned a blind eye’ as teenage bride was beaten to death by arranged
husband
A teenage bride was beaten to death by her husband while her in-laws who
shared the same house ignored her sickening ordeal, a court heard yesterday.
Sabia Rani, 19, was repeatedly attacked over a three-week period, suffering
bruising over 90% of her body and ‘catastrophic’ injuries usually only seen in
car crash victims.
The ‘vulnerable’ teenager, who had arrived five months earlier from Pakistan
for the arranged marriage, required emergency treatment in a hospital intensive
care unit, the jury at Leeds Crown Court heard.
But not only did four members of her husband’s family do nothing to help her,
they turned a blind eye as he continued the beatings and ultimately murdered the
helpless young woman at the house they all shared, it was alleged.
The victim’s mother-in-law and a sister-in-law blamed her horrfic injuries,
which included at least 15 fractures on 10 fractured ribs, on ‘evil spirits,
curses and black magic.’ While two of the family allegedly lied under oath while
giving evidence in husband Shazad Khan’s murder trial in a deliberate attempt to
help him cheat justice, the court heard.
Khan, 25, of Oakwood Grange, Leeds, was convicted of murdering his wife at
Leeds Crown Court last January. After the trial police launched an investigation
into the role of other family members sharing the house.
Detectives arrested and charged the victim’s mother-in-law Phullan Bibi, 52,
sisters-in-law Nazia Naureen, 28, sister-in-law Uzma Khan, 23, and her husband
Majid Hussain, 28. All four denied a charge of allowing the death of a
vulnerable adult. Khan and Hussain also denied a charge of perjury.
Summarising the prosecution case Simon Myerson, QC, said of the defendants:
‘They did nothing. She was in severe pain, but not one of them did anything
about it.’
Sabia grew up in the Pakistani region of Kashmir and arrived in the UK in
December 2005 to marry her cousin Shazad Khan and live with his family in Leeds.
Although they ‘signed a marriage certificate’ in Pakistan three years earlier,
they were not formally married until a ceremony on 15 January 2006.
The teenage bride didn’t speak English, knew no one else apart from her
husband’s family and never went out alone, the court heard.
Paramedics were called to the family home at 11.28 am on Sunday 21 May 2006
to find Sabia’s fully-clothed and dead body in an upstairs bathroom. They
claimed Sabia had been found dead in the bath, but the court heard she was
‘probably killed in the garage’ and her body taken upstairs.
Mr Myerson said Khan had inflicted a number of brutal attacks during the last
three weeks of Sabia’s life. The final attack which killed her was ‘prolonged
and vicious,’ the court heard. Her agonising rib fractures were caused by
‘kicks, stamps or very hard punches.’