Honour killing story: Saadi (2008)

Saadi
born: 1960
killed: 26/27 September 2008
Residence: Thannhausen (BW)
Origin: Iraq
Children: two sons, 16 and 18 years old
Perpetrator: Abdul Hakim Ali (46 years old), her divorced unemployed husband

Abdul holds an Iraqi and a Syrian passport. He is known to the police for domestic violence and has a criminal record for assaulting his wife and daughter. He has had a restraining order since early September 2008.

But Abdul apparently does not take this seriously and beat his wife to death with an axe in the former family home on the night of September 27, 2008. The two sons find her dead in the morning. Abdul is put on the wanted list and later arrested on a train to Prague. Apparently he attended the Oktoberfest in Munich in between.

In September 2009, the trial begins at the district court in Memmingen. Especially the daughter testifies against her father and has to be placed in witness protection because she is threatened by his clan. In October, the perpetrator is sentenced to life imprisonment. Unfortunately, the real names of the victim and the perpetrator are not known.

What is an honour killing?

An honour killing is a murder in the name of honour. If a brother murders his sister to restore family honour, it is an honour killing. According to activists, the most common reasons for honour killings are as the victim:

refuses to cooperate in an arranged marriage.
wants to end the relationship.
was the victim of rape or sexual assault.
was accused of having a sexual relationship outside of marriage.

Human rights activists believe that 100,000 honour killings are carried out every year, most of which are not reported to the authorities and some are even deliberately covered up by the authorities themselves, for example because the perpetrators are good friends with local policemen, officials or politicians. Violence against girls and women remains a serious problem in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Serbia and Turkey.