By Paul Byrne- 22 May 2012 20:30
'I saw my parents suffocate my sister': Teenager gives evidence behind screen in murder trial
Alesha, who was 15 at the time of the death, told police in 2010 she had witnessed dad Iftikhar and mum Farzana’s attack
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Teenager Shafilea Ahmed’s parents murdered her by stuffing a plastic bag in her mouth and suffocating her, a jury heard today.
Her sister, Alesha, says she saw their parents kill her in the family home in 2003 after the strict Muslim couple became furious by 17-year-old Shafilea’s attempts to lead a Western lifestyle.
Alesha, who was 15 at the time of the death, told police in 2010 she had witnessed dad Iftikhar and mum Farzana’s attack.
Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, told the jury today: “Alesha describes an act of suffocation by her parents acting together.
“A plastic carrier bag was forced into her [Shafilea’s] mouth.
"Then hands were put over her face to close her airways so she could not breathe.”
He added: “She then describes activity in the house that night to do with the body.”
It included her mum sorting through sheets and grabbing bin bags and tape.
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Alesha says she then saw her dad outside with “a large object wrapped in bin bags” which she “assumed was the body of her sister”.
Her dad then allegedly drove off. Shafilea’s decomposed body was found five months later next to the River Kent near Sedgwick in Cumbria.
Alesha says that on the day after the attack she told friends that she had seen her parents chop up A-level student Shafilea’s body at their home in Warrington, Cheshire, but no one believed her.
Giving evidence from behind a screen at Chester crown court today, Alesha, now 23, says her sister led a secret life to hide her love of Western culture from her parents.
She said Iftikhar, 52, and Farzana, 49, flew into violent rages over Shafilea wearing Western clothes or contacting boys.
Alesha said on one occasion her parents held knives against Shafilea’s throat.
She said: “It was frantic and out of control. They were just hitting her. I can picture it now. She just sat there taking it.
“In the couple of years before her death it was just arguments and little slaps here and there.
"It was really going downhill. Shafilea ran away from home a lot.”
Alesha said her mum gave Shafilea a drugged drink before a trip to Pakistan.
She added that her parents locked Shafilea in her room without food for three days over suspicions of talking to boys.
Shafilea’s parents deny murder. The trial continues.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/shafilea-ahmed-murder-trial-sister-844106
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