A 19-year-old victim of an Islamic acid attack
When Homa, the 48-year-old wife of Mohamad, pulled back the shower curtain after her husband told her to “have a look” at what he was holding, the pot of hot boiling oil in his hands was not what she expected.
In a matter of seconds her face was gone – melted – and the right hand she raised to protect herself permanently fused shut. She was left with burns over 44 percent of her body … scarred forever to restore her husband’s honor.
The couple, identified only by their first names, are Afghan Muslim migrants living in Hamburg-Harburg, Germany. Mohamad, unemployed, told investigators he attacked his wife without warning “to make her unattractive to other men,” reported Die Welt.
“It was about the core of our marriage,” Mohamad told the Hamburg District Court on Monday.
“I suspected that she wanted another man. Suddenly, she was wearing different clothes and losing weight. So, I wanted to make her unattractive for other men. I was afraid of the shame. I wanted to show her that I am not weak!”
Honor attacks on women that result in death are common in Islamic countries, with an estimated 1,000 per year occurring in Pakistan. They are generally carried out by family members in response to some perceived shame caused by the victim.
In October, Germany was rocked by the murder of Rokstan M., a 20-year-old Syrian refugee who had been gang-raped in her home country and who was convinced her family considered her “unclean,” and wanted her dead. Her body was found on the family’s property and her father and brothers – who have since disappeared – are suspected of having killed her at the urging of her mother.
Mohamad insisted in court on Monday he had not intended to kill his wife, only to make sure no other man would look at her.
“The attack on my wife — I’m sorry,” he said. “I lost control of myself, but I did not want to kill her.”
Homa, still fearful of her husband, gave testimony from a separate room. She said that Mohamad got dressed and left the house after scalding her. It took paramedics nearly 30 minutes to arrive and, all the while, Homa feared he would return to kill her.
“I was afraid that my husband would have stabbed me with a knife,” she told the court.
Mohamad’s sentencing is scheduled for April 21.
But Muslim honor killings are not limited to unemployed Mideast migrants suddenly thrown into unfamiliar Western cultures.
WND reported the New York decapitation murder of Aasiya Hassan, wife of Muzzammil Hassan, founder of a Muslim TV network aimed at portraying Muslims in a positive light and recipient of an award from the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations. Aasiya reportedly suffered several stab wounds before she was beheaded, possibly still alive. Muzzammil was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.