In October 2002, fearful that his 16-year old daughter Heshu was becoming too “Westernized,” Abdalla Yones stabbed her repeatedly, then slit her throat.

This happened in London: Father jailed for ‘honour killing’.

Heshu, who was described as popular and fun-loving, planned to run away from home after starting a relationship with an 18-year-old Lebanese teacher.

In a letter to her parents, apparently showing she planned to run away, Heshu wrote: “Bye Dad, sorry I was so much trouble.

“Me and you will probably never understand each other, but I’m sorry I wasn’t what you wanted, but there’s some things you can’t change.

“Hey, for an older man you have a good strong punch and kick.

“I hope you enjoyed testing your strength on me, it was fun being on the receiving end. Well done.”

Yones was a political refugee who fled Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq 10 years ago.

The court heard that after repeatedly stabbing his daughter and slitting her throat, he cut his own throat and jumped from a third floor balcony.

Scotland Yard described it as a “brutal honour killing” - a reference to the practice of women being killed by male relatives to redeem the family name.

Detective Inspector Brent Hyatt said: “There was nothing, nothing at all ‘honourable’ about her murder.

“After hacking his daughter to death, Mr Yones has attempted every defence, from psychiatric, and diminished responsibility to extreme provocation, in order to save his own skin.”

He added that Yones first claimed al-Qaeda members had broken into the flat, murdered Heshu and then attacked him. He only admitted murdering her last Monday.

The BBC spends an inordinate amount of verbiage making sure their readers know that this is a cultural practice; variations of the word “culture” appear five times in the article.

Scotland Yard believe there were 12 ‘honour killings’ in the UK last year and said they were not restricted to Muslims, but also occurred in Sikh and Christian families.

A specialist police unit is researching the practice but police say only a handful of people believed ‘honour killings’ were an appropriate cultural response.

This “handful” of people apparently includes an overwhelming majority of the Jordanian parliament, who recently rejected new laws against honor killings because they would “violate religious traditions.”

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