‘I Was Kicking and Stamping on Her Neck to Get the Soul Out’

• Views: 1,798

The practice of “honor killing” is sickening enough, but this horrifying story sets a new benchmark in depravity: Woman raped before honor killing: court.

LONDON (Reuters) - A Kurdish woman was brutally raped, stamped on and strangled by members of her family and their friends in an “honor killing” carried out at her London home because she had fallen in love with the wrong man.

Banaz Mahmod, 20, was subjected to the 2-1/2 hour ordeal before she was garroted with a bootlace. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase and taken about 100 miles to Birmingham where it was buried in the back garden of a house. Her badly decomposed body was found in April 2006, three months after the killing.

Last month a jury found her father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and his brother Ari Mahmod, 51, guilty of murder after a three-month trial. Their associate Mohamad Hama, 30, had earlier admitted killing her. On Thursday at a pre-sentence hearing for Hama, the Old Bailey heard details about Banaz’s last moments.

Prosecutors said the three convicted men, along with two other suspects who are still at large, had carried out the killing fearing that the authorities were closing in on them. They believed Banaz had brought shame on the family by leaving her husband, an Iraqi Kurd she had been forced to marry at 17, and falling in love with Rahmat Suleimani, an Iranian Kurd.

Her former unnamed partner had raped her as well as repeatedly beating her, the court heard.

Hama, who prosecutors said had been a ringleader in the murder, was caught by listening devices talking to a friend in prison about the murder.

In the recordings, transcripts of which were relayed to the court, Hama and his friend are hearing laughing as he described how she was killed with Banaz’s uncle “supervising”.

“I was kicking and stamping on her neck to get the soul out. I saw her stark naked, only wearing pants or underwear,” Hama is recorded as saying.

Jump to top

Create a PageThis is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title, text, and any embedded video or audio files already filled in, ready to go.
Or... you can just click this button to open the Pages posting window right away.
Last updated: 2023-04-04 11:11 am PDT
LGF User's Guide RSS Feeds

Help support Little Green Footballs!

Subscribe now for ad-free access!Register and sign in to a free LGF account before subscribing, and your ad-free access will be automatically enabled.

Donate with
PayPal
Cash.app
Recent PagesClick to refresh
Why Did More Than 1,000 People Die After Police Subdued Them With Force That Isn’t Meant to Kill? An investigation led by The Associated Press has found that, over a decade, more than 1,000 people died after police subdued them through physical holds, stun guns, body blows and other force not intended to be lethal. More: Why ...
Cheechako
Yesterday
Views: 38 • Comments: 0 • Rating: 0
A Closer Look at the Eastman State Bar DecisionTaking a few minutes away from work things to read through the Eastman decision. As I'm sure many of you know, Eastman was my law school con law professor. I knew him pretty well because I was also running in ...
KGxvi
Yesterday
Views: 94 • Comments: 1 • Rating: 1