Fugitive mother of murdered Italian teen arrested
Pakistan
Saman Abbas, 18, went missing from the Italian city of Reggio Emilia on April 30, 2021
(Web Desk) – The Pakistani mother of an Italian teenager who was murdered in the name of honour has been arrested almost four years after the gruesome incident, reported Italian news agency Ansa.
Saman Abbas, 18, went missing from the Italian city of Reggio Emilia on April 30, 2021. Her body was found at a farmhouse in northern Italy in November 2022, 18 months after she disappeared.
She was killed because she refused an arranged marriage.
Her father, Shabbar Abbas, was arrested in Pakistan and extradited to be tried for her murder in August, 2023. The couple was sentenced in absentia for life by a court in Reggio Emilia in December 2023.
Her mother, Nazia Shaheen, 51, was convicted in her absence. She remained on the run in Pakistan and was arrested last week from Azad Kashmir as a result of cooperation between Interpol and Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the news agency Ansa added.
She has been moved to Islamabad where she appeared in a court on Friday for the extradition procedure, Ansa continued.
Italian judges observed that the victim’s mother “may have been the person who actually carried out the murder.”
The judges also ruled out that the motivation for the murder was her refusal to marry an older man in Pakistan, as has been widely believed. The killing was “spur of the moment” and in a fit of anger over the victim’s desire to leave home and live with her boyfriend, the Italian agency added.
Saman’s uncle, Danish Hasnain, who was extradited from France to face the trial, was also sentenced to 14 years, while her two cousins were acquitted.
THE TRAGIC SAGA
Saman's “honour killing” in late April 2021 shocked Italy. Following her disappearance, Italy's union of Islamic communities issued a fatwa – a religious edict – rejecting forced marriages.
She had emigrated with her family from Pakistan to the farm town of Novellara in 2016. She began dating a young man of Pakistani origin.
Italian investigators said her parents had wanted her to travel to Pakistan for an arranged marriage in 2020, but she refused.
Saman then lived for several months under the protection of social services from October 2020, but returned to her home in Novellara in late April 2021 in response to a flurry of messages from her family, Italian reports said.
Prosecutors said she had been tricked into returning home and it was at this point she disappeared.
CCTV footage released by the police showed three of Saman's family members walking with spades, a crowbar and a blue bag on 29 April 2021. The following day, separate footage showed the missing teenager leaving the house with her parents.
Her body was eventually recovered November 2022, close to a farm house not far from where the family lived, after her uncle had revealed where she had been buried.
A post mortem examination found she had suffered a broken neck bone, possibly as a result of being strangled.
Her parents had immediately left Italy for Pakistan after she disappeared, while her uncle Danish and two of her cousins travelled to France and Spain.
