April 30, 2024 at 5:01 pm
“If there is one thing that the investigation and the procedural dialectics have made it possible to clarify, it is that Saman Abbas was not killed for opposing an arranged/forced marriage”.
This is what we read in the over 600 pages of the reasons for the sentence of the Court of Assizes of Reggio Emilia on the murder of the 18-year-old Pakistani girl, which occurred on the night between 30 April and 1 May 2021 in Novellara. The Court in December sentenced the father and mother to life imprisonment and the uncle to 16 years. For the judges, in particular, the parents Abbas Shabbar and Shaheen Nazia “literally accompanied their daughter to die and it cannot be ruled out that her mother was the material executor”.
Killed for the lifestyle. According to the judges, the family’s opposition to the lifestyle chosen by the girl was behind the murder of Saman Abbas. The 18-year-old wanted to continue the relationship with her boyfriend Saqib. The judges write that the crime should be “anchored, rather than to an indeterminate series of events, as claimed by the prosecution, to the final epilogue of the story, which took place on the evening of April 30, when the parents, due to the video recordings of the chats made from Haider, they will discover that the relationship with Saqib is still ongoing and that his daughter is planning to run away again, a discovery that will then lead to the final discussion with Saman.”
The role of the mother. In reconstructing the dynamics of the murder, the judges write that “the defendants Abbas Shabbar and Shaheen Nazia”, father and mother of the 18-year-old, had “literally accompanied their daughter to die” and it is not “excluded that it was” her mother ‘material executor’. The murder was decided during the phone call between uncle Danish Hasnain and Saman Abbas’ parents, as demonstrated by the behavior of the two in the videos from the farm’s cameras on the night of April 30th. “The common intention of the defendants to commit the murder of their own daughter, the presence of both at the scene of the crime, and the proven contribution made to the realization of the event can be said to be circumstantially ascertained”. The behavior and demeanor of the two, recorded by the cameras, would then be “eloquent and expressive”. Her mother, in a firm and determined way, blocking her husband with a resolute gesture, goes onto the road with Saman “for that minute which does not allow us to exclude that she was the material executor”. The husband, who “appears tormented, adopting attitudes that reflect the drama of what is happening, but which he remains to observe, without doing anything”. Thus confirming “his full psychological adherence to the fact”.
