Samia Shahid: British woman who died in alleged honour killing texted friend about fears she would not return alive
The 28-year-old was raped and strangled by her ex-husband with her father's help, police say
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Your support makes all the difference.A British woman who died in a suspected honour killing in Pakistan texted a friend asking her to pray she “came back alive” hours before boarding a flight it has emerged.
Samia Shahid, originally from Bradford, died while visiting her relatives in her ancestral village of Dhok Khinger in Pakistan.
Her family initially claimed she had a heart attack, but an autopsy revealed she had been strangled and raped.
Her husband Syed Mukhtar Kazam repeatedly said she had been murdered because her family were angry that she had left her first husband, her Pakistani cousin Muhammad Shakeel, to marry him in 2014.
Shakeel reportedly confessed to the murder to police and appeared in court with Samia’s father, Mohammed Shahid, on Monday in the eastern city of Jhelum.
The police said the investigation is now complete and they will both be held for 14 days pending formal charges and trial. Lawyers for the pair have said they will plead not guilty at their next appearance on 17 September.
A 43-page police report, seen by the Mail Online, by an official connected with the case, concluded her father had held her down while Shakeel raped her.
In the report, it said the day before she was due to fly to Islamabad for the week-long stay, she texted her friend with the message: “Pray I come bk alive on 21jul my psyco cuzzan u see” – referring to her former husband.
The 28-year-old beautician had taken several precautions before the trip to see her family – which was undertaken when she was told her father was gravely ill – by refusing to tell them when her flights were and arranging for a friend in Islamabad to keep hold of her passport and return tickets.
Pakistani authorities say they believe her father had called the local authorities on 21 July, just hours before she was due to board a flight to meet Mr Kazam in Dubai, to claim she had died of natural causes.
But forensic and DNA tests confirmed Shakeel, who reportedly had never accepted the divorce, had raped Samia: “The result indicated a perfect match, thereby establishing that the victim was raped by accused Shakeel before she was murdered,” said the report.
The forensic report also showed a 19mm cut across her neck from where she had been strangled.
The report claimed Shakeel was angry at the divorce and felt she had “dishonoured him and his family”. They had originally married in Pakistan in 2012 where she stayed for a short time before going back to the UK. She then divorced him ex-parte two years later and moved to Dubai to be with Mr Kazam.
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