Honour on Trial (10 page)

Latif decided to send a message to Shafia through the son: Lighten up. Let the sisters go to parties. Let them associate freely with friends.

"Maybe your father doesn't understand the environment," Latif told him. "Your sisters can't watch TV. They're like political prisoners. This is completely against humanity, against the situation in this country."

Latif said Hamed listened quietly as they sat on the front porch. In a few days, the young man would pack his black suitcase and fly off to join his father in Dubai for 12 days.

1 http://www.meforum.org/50/honor-murders-why-the-perps-get-off-easy

Rona's life…

WHILE the Shafia girls were feeling the heavy hand of parental control in June of 2009, pressure was building on Rona. Isolation was increasing inside the household and she had no network of friends in Montreal.

When Rona first came to Canada in November 2007, the Hyderis invited her to their house, along with Tooba and Shafia, for the traditional meal given to travellers. Latif told her to consider him her "paternal uncle."

"You can always come to our house. Don't feel isolated that you have no brother or sister here or no parents here," he recalled telling her. "She became very happy when I told her these things."

The Hyderis didn't have much contact with Rona after that, except to see her when she walked past their home on her many endless, solitary walks, in all seasons and all weather.

One day, on leaving their apartment building, they were surprised to find Tooba outside with one of the children. "Don't talk to Rona," Latif recalled her saying. "Don't talk to Rona at all." The Hyderis could only come to one conclusion about this unsettling demand — things were happening in the Shafia household that someone didn't want known.

The Hyderis would walk in a neighbourhood park also frequented by Rona. It would later be revealed that she used a pay telephone there to make secret calls to supportive friends and family members. The Hyderis would say hello but felt uncomfortable since Tooba had confronted them. "There are always problems in their house," Latif told his wife. "We should give up coming to this park."

One day, however, Latif was alone in the park and met Rona. "She said, 'I wanted to talk to you. I have a problem I want to talk to you about if you will listen to me. There is a lot of cruelty and oppression practised on me by Tooba and Shafia. They beat me two or three times. I am as their servant, not a wife,'" Latif testified in court.

Tooba and Shafia had her immigration documents. She was constantly uncertain of her legal status in Canada. Rona didn't realize it, but the Montreal immigration lawyer Shafia had hired to handle her case also had concerns.

Sabine Venturelli, like everyone else outside the family, believed Rona Amir Mohammad to be Shafia's cousin. Twice, she had arranged to have Rona's visitor's visa extended. The last one was due to expire on August 30, 2009, and this time, if she was instructed by Shafia to proceed, Venturelli would file for Rona's permanent immigrant status based on humanitarian grounds.

What Venturelli recalled in court was that Rona never appeared at her office without one or both Shafias and a female relative being there as well. Shafia always paid for the work with cash. By spring of 2009, Venturelli hadn't been contacted by anyone about Rona's case since the previous November.

What the jury never heard was that Shafia, through his female relative, had sent an offer to Venturelli to close the file — for a fee of $10,000. The closure likely would have resulted in Rona's being sent out of Canada. The lawyer never accepted this exorbitant sum and never performed the work. At the time of Rona's death, the file was still active at Venturelli's office and with Canadian immigration.

Rona's isolation was also increasing. According to her confidantes, the children were ordered not to talk to her. Rona said she confronted Shafia about his treatment of her. Rona was also calling her brother and sister in Europe, from the park, to ask for their advice. Her sister, Diba Masoomi, told her to divorce Shafia and come live with her in France.

Latif Hyderi was at a loss as to how to advise Rona. "I saw that I couldn't help her," he recalled. "I told Rona, 'My sister, do something.'"

Rona was trying to do something. By talking to Latif, she may, in fact, have been acting on the advice of a woman in the United States who had become a close long-distance telephone confidante.

Fahima Vorgetts never met Rona face to face but she did talk to her at least a hundred times in the year prior to Rona's death. Vorgetts's uncle was married to one of Rona's sisters. They became close through their telephone contacts — most of which occurred when Rona called from the phone booth in the park. She told Vorgetts that her phone time had been restricted in the home and that she was being ostracized. "Most of the time she would be crying a lot," said Vorgetts.

Rona told her long-distance friend the story of how she had married Shafia at a young age and that her inability to have children had created a chasm between her and Shafia. "She was controlled from day one, then abused," Vorgetts recounted. Vorgetts believed Rona was in very real danger posed by Shafia and his temper.

"She was afraid to stay. She was afraid to leave. He said he would find her and kill her. He did tell her many times that he will kill her. When he was abusing her, beating her up, he used that word," she said.

Vorgetts is director of the Afghan Women's Fund, which supports organizations that educate women and children and assist with health issues, particularly concerning maternal and paediatric care. She became a feminist at the age of 10 after the fundamentalist Taliban took over Afghanistan and began imposing restrictions on women. Rona had talked to Vorgetts about getting out of the Shafia home and possibly moving to the U.S., or to Europe where she had family. She said she was seeking a divorce settlement from Shafia.

"She was thinking about going to Europe, not to Afghanistan. As a divorcée, she would have a difficult time there," Vorgetts said. "A woman cannot live alone in Afghanistan. It's not uncommon, but it's looked down upon."

The last time Vorgetts spoke to Rona was at the end of April 2009. "She was controlled. At the end of our conversations, she was convinced she should leave — that she should stand on her own feet," said Vorgetts.

This was also the tumultuous period during which Zainab was in the women's shelter and the Shafia men were searching frantically to find her — before Tooba ultimately negotiated Zainab's return home.

Vorgetts believes the girls were not just being rebellious teens but sending out cries for help. Otherwise, Vorgetts asked, why did Geeti shoplift if she had everything she needed, including lots of spending money? Why would a 13-year-old wear revealing clothes to school and get kicked out as a result? Why did Zainab make the decision to go to a women's shelter? "A happy girl would not want to be in a shelter. Shelters are very foreign to Afghanistan," said Vorgetts.

Rona was witnessing firsthand with Zainab how breaking away from the family could upset the men in the household. Still, Vorgetts was trying to get her to report the abuse to police and to seek help at a Montreal church or mosque. "She said if she goes to the police her husband will kill her," said Vorgetts. "She took it seriously. Her husband told her he will kill her if she leaves."

There were other reasons why Rona couldn't leave. "She loved the girls; she loved the children," Vorgetts said. "Another reason was, if she goes to the police, her husband threatened they would send her back to Afghanistan."

Rona said Shafia knew people in Afghanistan who would find her and kill her.Vorgetts left for Afghanistan on May 1, 2009, returning to her home in Virginia on July 1, the day after Rona's body was found in the canal. Rona had called a number of times in that month-long interval. "There were desperate messages. It sounded like she was in big trouble," Vorgetts recalled.

But Vorgetts had no way of contacting Rona. The year of calls from Montreal, sometimes coming two and three times a week, were all made by Rona from the pay phone in the park, using calling cards she bought with her allowance.

Vorgetts tried to reach her through various relatives but never did.

"I think the message did not get through to her," Vorgetts testified at the trial. "Then I heard she was dead."

Fazil's testimony…

IT had been many years since Fazil Javid had seen his sister, Tooba. Now here they were, sitting face to face, 10 m apart, in the main courtroom of the Frontenac County Court House in Kingston. Javid had been flown in by the Crown to testify at his sister's murder trial. His testimony would play a significant role in the Shafia convictions.

Sometime around the start of 2009, Tooba had started calling her brother in Sweden where he owned a pizzeria. She needed to speak to her brother on a regular basis "about the family problems in the home … She wanted to open up to me and talk about it," he told the court.

Tooba's main concern, according to Fazil, was Zainab's desire to marry Ammar Wahid and the tension it was creating in the home. Fazil talked to his niece twice on the phone. In fact, he tried to convince Zainab to follow her parents' advice and not marry the young Pakistani man.

They had a third encounter using Skype in April or May of 2009. "That was accidental," said Fazil. Zainab happened to be visiting Fazil's brother Ahmed at his home not far from the Shafias in Montreal. They talked to each other "maybe 10 minutes," recalled Fazil, coming close to tears on the witness stand. Sahar was also in the room with Zainab but wouldn't show herself on the computer's Web camera because she was too shy. Zainab explained to her uncle that she only wanted to marry Ammar to get away from her father.

"She was not happy and she wanted to leave the house. That's what she told me," said Fazil. "The condition was so hard on her she wanted as soon as possible to leave the house."At age 19, Zainab described not being able to wear the clothes she wanted, being forced to wear the hijab, not allowed to go out with friends or even go to the library.

"There was no permission for that. She wanted that freedom. She was fed up. She just wanted to marry," said Fazil. "There was one person and that was Mr. Shafia who was making the decisions."

Zainab also told Fazil about Hamed's role, assigned by their father, to spy on her. "He's always following me," Zainab complained.

"Zainab hated her father," Fazil said. "Shafia hated Zainab."'Fazil had already told Tooba that he was unable to change Zainab's mind about marrying Ammar. He suggested now he might come to Canada and help the family sort out their problems.

As it turned out, Fazil was also getting information about the Shafias' household turmoil from another inside source — Rona. Twice she called him from the Montreal pay phone to talk about how "everything was disintegrated." He recalled Rona talking about Geeti, how the little girl was lonely and staying in Rona's room with her away from the rest of the family.

Rona was isolated. "She didn't have any authority at home like a housewife," said Fazil. According to Fazil, Rona had approached Shafia about getting a divorce and asked for a settlement of $50,000. Shafia told her he would send her to France and give her just $2,000, nothing more.

Fazil decided to float his idea of visiting Montreal with Shafia who was, as usual, working in Dubai. This was a dicey proposition. The two had not spoken since 1992 when they were fleeing to Pakistan and the two men had a disagreement over the ownership of one of the vehicles they were driving. Shafia considered him a mortal enemy because of the incident. Fazil persisted. Around the end of May or early June 2009, he got Shafia's phone number in Dubai. He placed the call from his pizza shop around 4 in the afternoon Swedish time, using a calling card because the card rates were cheaper than using the regular phone system.

Shafia seemed to be prepared for his brother-in-law's call. "He told me, 'I just want some help from you,'" Fazil told the court.

According to Fazil, Shafia tried to engage his help "to fulfill the murder plan of Zainab." Shocked, Fazil listened as Shafia, sounding extremely angry, revealed his plot to have Tooba, Zainab, and one of the younger sisters travel to Sweden for a visit. While they were there, Shafia would show up and one day they would all travel to the seaside for a family barbecue. Shafia would lure Zainab to the water and push her in. Unable to swim, she would surely drown, and Shafia's problems with boyfriends and disobedience would be over.

The words he used to describe his daughter surprised and shocked Fazil."Prostitute, whore — these are very bad words, ugly words in our culture," he told the court. "No one is using that against his own children. He just wanted to flare up my emotions and [make me] accept his request. He was very angry."

Fazil hung up on his brother-in-law. "I swore at him and I cut the line," he said. Then he tried to call his brother in Montreal to warn him that if he heard of any trips being planned, to "tell police he has such an intention." Ahmed wasn't home when Javid called with his warning. When Tooba phoned Sweden, Fazil told her about the plot her husband was hatching.

"I told her, Shafia wants to kill Zainab, to drown her. He told me he will put her in water and drown her. If he wants to take her on a trip, don't accept."'Fazil told Tooba she should go to the police in Montreal, but she asked him no questions and made no commitments. "She told me it was very good you told me. Nothing else she said."

Fazil said the experience unnerved him so much he had to start seeing a psychiatrist. Asked at the trial why Shafia, who considered Fazil a sworn enemy, would suddenly try to enlist him in a plot to kill Zainab, he replied that his brother-in-law's reasoning was obvious.

"Everybody would have thought I would have been the main suspect. Today you would have seen me in that [prisoners'] box," he said. "One hundred percent, everybody would have thought I was the murderer."

The defence also asked why Shafia would murder Geeti when she, unlike her older sisters, wasn't seeing boyfriends. "Why did he kill Geeti? That's a very good question," Fazil said. "She [would be] a very good witness. She would be sitting here as a witness. She would be able to open up and tell all the secrets."