Hege Storhaug, HRS
Den spesielle æresvoldsrelaterte saken går for retten i disse dager, og den er spesiell i den forstand at unge kvinner tiltales for æresrelatert vold mot en søster. Saken har sitt utspring i en familie som karakteriseres som strengt troende. Offeret, 18 år gamle Shamina Akhtar, brøt med familiens forbud mot kontakt med menn med en annen kulturbakgrunn. Hun ble tatt på fersken da hun skal ha kysset en brite.
A Muslim teenager was kidnapped and beaten by her own siblings after they caught her kissing a white man, a court heard today.
Shamima Akhtar, 18, was allegedly bundled into a car and taken home before being beaten by her two older sisters, Nadiya, 25, and Nazira, 29, and brother Kayum Mohammed-Abdul, 24.
Winchester Crown Court heard they called Shamima ‘a whore and a prostitute and then cut her waist-length hair up to her neck after they saw her kissing a white man, Gary Pain, in the car park of a restaurant in Basingstoke, Hampshire, on April 1 last year.
Prosecutor Peter Ateris told hoe an ‘extremely aggressive and threatening’ Mohammed-Abdul assaulted Mr Pain while Shamima was ‘firmly escorted’ to the car by their two sisters.
The jury heard the Shamima came from a strict Islamic family and was controlled by her siblings but she considered herself Westernised.
Mr Asteris said: ‘This case is unusual because it’s about a family, the Crown say, who oppressed and chastised one of their members that was not complying with the rules of that family.
‘This is about honour-based domestic violence. Shamima is the sister of the three defendants. Her family has very strong and traditional Islamic beliefs and they live their lives as a family in accordance with those beliefs.
‘Shamima was not allowed to smoke or consume alcohol. Importantly, she must not have any contact with males of a different culture.
‘Shamima considers herself western and she did not want to live her life that way.’
The court heard Shamima had a job at Argos and she had got permission from her reluctant family to go out with work colleagues to celebrate her 18th birthday on April 1.
She had told her family her colleagues were all female and they agreed she could go if she returned home by 10.30pm.
Mr Asteris said: ‘Shamima did not want to return home at 10.30pm that night when she was celebrating her birthday.
‘When it was just about time for her to leave she went outside with Gary Pain, a colleague she had become close to, and when she was outside she kissed him.
‘At that point her two sisters and her brother drove into the location at speed. They screeched into the car park, her brother was driving, and they got out.’
One of the sisters then escorted Shamima into the car while Mohammed-Abdul grabbed Mr Pain ‘around the neck and became extremely aggressive and threatening’, the jury heard.
‘Shamima said she was thrown into the back seat of the car and she was punched by her sister Nazira.
‘She did not want to go with her family and she was fearful of what they were going to do with her,’ Mr Asteris said.
The car was driven back to the family home in Basingstoke and Shamima was dragged in to the house and put on a sofa where she was subjected to a ‘array of insults’ including ‘whore and prostitute’, the jury heard.
Nadiya is then alleged to have punched her sister in the back of the head and Mohammed-Abdul is alleged to have kicked her.
Then the two sisters decided to punish Shamima by cutting her hair, which had been kept long as part of their faith.
The court heard that Shamima called police the next day who arrested her siblings.
Her brother and two elder sisters deny kidnap, actual bodily harm and false imprisonment.
Mohammed-Abdul also denies assaulting Mr Pain.
The trial continues.