Shafia daughters killed over boyfriends.

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A car found at the bottom of an eastern Ontario canal with the bodies of three sisters and their father's first wife suspended in the water inside seemed to trace a very deliberate path, a murder trial heard Friday.
In a case that has raised the issue of so-called honour killings, the Crown alleges the girls' family couldn't bear the "treachery" of their daughters having boyfriends, so they killed them and staged the scene to look like an accident.
But it certainly didn't look like an accident to the first officer on the scene at the Kingston Mills on June 30, 2009, court heard Friday. Kingston police Const. Brent White testified that he first thought the car at the bottom of the locks was the work of pranksters with a stolen vehicle.
The Crown theory of the car's path, which White suspected that day, is that it would have had to travel past a locked gate, over a concrete curb and a rocky outcrop and then make two U-turns to end up in the locks of the canal.
[B]Bodies floating in car[/B]

"In my mind â?¦ I'm thinking this is pretty difficult to get that vehicle in that narrow spot," White testified. "It had to be driven there on purpose."
Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, her husband, Mohammad Shafia, 58, and their son, Hamed Mohammad Shafia, 20, have each pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, Shafia's first wife, who lived with the family in a polygamous relationship.
When the three defence lawyers cross-examined White and another police witness Friday, they suggested there were many other points where a car could have gone into the water much easier and much more directly. Hamed Shafia's lawyer, Patrick McCann, likened the car going in the "circuitous" path the Crown suggests as akin to "threading the needle."
Kingston police Const. Julia Moore testified Friday that when the bodies were discovered they were floating in the car. A police diver took a video camera down into the locks and police at the surface could see Sahar and Rona in the backseat, in seated positions.
Rona Amir Mohammad was Shafia's first wife, but he married Yahya when it became apparent Mohammad couldn't have children. She lived with the family in a polygamous marriage and helped raise the children, court heard.
Zainab likely started out in the front passenger seat, court heard, but was found floating, with her back against the ceiling, facing the rear.
[B]Motel worker to testify[/B]

Geeti, the youngest, was found suspended over the driver's seat, one arm wrapped around the headrest and her head against the door post.
Yahya, the girls' mother, appeared to cry, burying her face in a tissue as Moore described the positioning of the bodies. The two accused men were stoic.
The Montreal family had been on their way home from a trip to Niagara Falls, Ont. Court has heard that a motel manager will testify that when Shafia and Hamed checked in to two rooms for the family that night, at first Shafia said there would be six guests.
There were 10 people on the family trip.
Court heard Thursday, the first day of the trial, that an expert will be called to testify about so-called honour killings and how in extreme cases, killing can be seen in some cultures as a way to restore honour to a family. Disobedience by a female member of the family can cause shame and taint family honour, the expert is expected testify.
[B]'Nothing more valuable than our honour'[/B]

Crown attorney Laurie Lacelle quoted police wiretaps made surreptitiously in the days after the deaths that show the family's concern for their honour.
"Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows, nothing is more dear to me than my honour," Shafia said. "Let's leave our destiny to God, and may God never make me, you or your mother honourless...There is nothing more valuable than our honour."
The family immigrated to Canada in 2007. They left their home country of Afghanistan in 1992 and lived for a number of years in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai before coming to North America.
Shafia's first wife loved the children dearly, Lacelle said, but she wrote in a diary that Yahya treated her poorly and her husband beat her. She wanted to leave, but told family members that she was afraid if she left Shafia would kill her, Lacelle told the court.
The trial continues Monday and is expected to last between two and three months.

Source: [URL]http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/10/21/mtl-shafiatrialdaytwo.html[/URL]

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[B]Timeline: Shafia family murder trial[/B]

Global News and The Gazette : Monday, October 31, 2011 11:31 AM


Sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and 13-year-old Geeti Shafia, were discovered with their polygamist father's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, in the car in the Rideau Canal in June 2009.

The girls' parents, Mohammad Shafia, 58, and Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, and their son Hamed Mohammad Shafia, 20, are charged with first-degree murder in the deaths.

As details of the case continue to unfold in an courtroom in Kingston, Ontario, Global News takes a look at key events u[FONT=Calibri]nveiled during[/FONT] the infamous Rideau Canal murder trial.

[B]August 6, 2009 - Shafias appear in court via video[/B]
The Montreal father, mother and their son charged with the mass murder of four of their family members appear briefly via video at a Kingston courthouse with one request: that they are allowed to speak to their three surviving children without lawyers present. The judge agrees.

[B]August 28, 2009 - Shafias to face preliminary hearings in February[/B]
Lawyer Peter Kemp, representing the elder Shafia, informs Jack Chiang, a justice of the peace that the entire month of February has been set aside for a preliminary inquiry in the case. Such inquiries are used to determine if the Crown has enough evidence to proceed to a trial. Lawyers representing all three accused also agree to set aside October 9 for a focus hearing, a date ordinarily used to address potential issues concerning evidence before a preliminary inquiry is held.

[B]February 2, 2010 - Prosecutors assemble evidence for Shafia hearing[/B]
Prosecutors attempt to show they have enough evidence to put one of the accused, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 40, on trial in the deaths of her three daughters and her husbandâ??s first wife.

[B]February 10, 2010 â?? Wife to stand in Kingston slayings[/B]
Tooba Mohammad Yahya is committed to stand trial, likely in 2011, on four charges of first-degree murder as well as four counts of conspiracy in connection with the deaths of four female family members found in a submerged car last June 30 in the Rideau Canal.

Mohammadâ??s lawyer, David Crowe, acknowledges that enough evidence has been presented at a preliminary inquiry for the 40-year-old woman to go to a full trial, according to a report in the Kingston Whig-Standard.

[B]October 13, 2011 â?? Jury selected for murder trial[/B]
After three days, twelve jurors and two alternates are selected for the jury for the murder trial of a Montreal couple and their adult son accused of killing members of their own family. The jury of six men and six women is chosen in a Kingston courtroom to hear the case, expected to run eight to 10 weeks.

[B]October 20, 2011 â?? Trial begins[/B]
The trial for three members of the Shafia family gets underway at the courthouse in Kingston, Ontario. Prosecutors will call up to 58 witnesses, including 21 police officers. Four Montreal police officers are on the prospective witness list.

[B]October 20, 2011 - Defendant's sobs wrack courtroom[/B]
Tooba Mohammad Yahya fills the courtroom with her cries for minutes at a time as lawyers review evidence in the killings of her daughters. A publication ban prevents the media from reporting on the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing.

[B]October 20, 2011 â?? Prosecutor outlines Crown case in 'honour killing' trial[/B]
Prosecutor Laurie Lacelle tells jurors that police mounted an elaborate, covert investigation that included the wiretapping of a Shafia vehicle. She says Shafia was recorded speaking to Tooba and Hamed, after the deaths but before they were arrested.

Lacelle also says the court will hear evidence about a practice in some cultures in which family honour can be tarnished by sexual misconduct or disobedience of women. In some cases, families believe they can restore their honour by killing the women who have transgressed.

[B]October 21, 2011 â?? Secret tapes revealed[/B]
In the days after Mohammad Shafiaâ??s three daughters died, he spoke privately to family members about how they had dishonoured him by consorting with boys; jurors at his murder trial were told.

â??Godâ??s curse on them â?¦ May the devil shit on their graves,â? says Shafia, in a conversation with his second wife, Tooba, and son, Hamed. The conversation was secretly recorded by police.

Prosecutor Laurie Lacelle reveals the excerpt from a wiretap during a 1½-hour opening address to the six-man, six-woman jury.

[B]October 21, 2011 - Shafias' lawyer grills police officer over car's route to canal[/B]
Defence lawyers get their chance to begin cross-examining the trialâ??s first witness, Kingston police Constable Julia Moore, who photographed and studied the isolated area around the Rideau Canal.

[B]October 25, 2011 - Police diver tells Shafia murder trial he was â??perplexedâ?? by sunken car[/B]
The veteran police diver who recovered the bodies from a sunken car was â??perplexedâ? that he could not determine who was driving the vehicle when it plunged into a shallow canal.

â??They were all piled on top of each other almost; it was very strange,â? Constable Glenn Newell testifies at the murder trial of three Montrealers accused of slaying four family members in an alleged honour killing.

â??I really couldnâ??t determine which person would have been the driver.â?

Newell says the driverâ??s side window was down fully, yet it did not appear anyone had tried to escape through the sizable opening. He says that, at recovery scenes, he sometimes finds the body of a driver partly out through an open window with his or her feet stuck in the steering wheel or their body entangled in the seatbelt. According to reports, none of the victims were wearing seatbelts when Newell found them, and there were only a few objects inside.

[B]October 26, 2011 â?? Court shown video of submerged bodies[/B]
A video of the submerged bodies is shown in court. It is the juryâ??s first look at the victims as they were found more than two years ago in a shallow canal.

Most of the 14-minute video shows technical aspects of the discovery, the position of the car underwater and various dents and scrapes. But there are grim moments, too.

The camera shows a thick matte of hair, the head of a victim wedged against the door pillar at the side of the car. As the camera moves along the driverâ??s side of the car and peers in through the open driverâ??s side window, stark white feet are visible. Later, the camera pans along the outside of the vehicle beside the rear passenger window, which is obscured by a blanket, a purse and a yellow plastic bag. As the camera moves around, a partially clenched hand, poking through the debris, comes into focus.

[B]October 27, 2011 - Jury in Rideau Canal murder trial visit alleged crime scene [/B]
Jurors at the Shafia murder trial peer over the stone precipice where a car carrying four members of a Montreal family plunged into a shallow canal.

Under a special provision in law, used rarely in criminal trials, the six men and six women are ferried by bus to Kingston Mills, a tiny hamlet just north of Highway 401. More than a dozen police officers, on foot, in a boat and using a police dog, maintained tight security.

The jurors spend 45 minutes exploring the Parks Canada property where prosecutors allege the Shafia family disposed the victims.

[B]October 27, 2011 - Searches on murder found on laptop[/B]
Days before three teenage sisters from Montreal and their father's first wife were found dead in a car submerged in canal locks in eastern Ontario, someone was conducting searches on the family computer for tips on murder.

A Kingston police officer testified they found searches for "documentaries on murders" and "where to commit a murder" on a laptop he used.

[B]October 28, 2011 - Family accused of killing four in canal inconsistent in statements to police[/B]
An Ontario court has heard that when three people accused of killing four family members first went to a police station, they reported just two people missing.

Barbara Webb, who works at the front desk at the police station in Kingston, tells the court that the three accused came to the station that day and Hamed told her his two sisters were missing and they were in a Nissan.

Webb says she knew a car had been found in the canal, so she conferred with police then asked the family for more information, at which time Hamed said it was actually three sisters and his dad's cousin who were missing.

She says the family said they were staying at a motel and when they woke up that morning the four people and the car were gone (The Canadian Press).

[B]October 29, 2011- 'I don't know what has happened,' father claimed[/B]

Three hours after police told Mohammad Shafia that his missing daughters were likely dead in a submerged car, he gave an officer a calm, hourlong account of the family's actions in the previous 24 hours.

"I don't know what has happened," the Montreal businessman said through an interpreter, in an interview with a detective that was videotaped at the Kingston Police station on the afternoon of June 30, 2009. "We woke up in the morning, didn't see the car, didn't see the kids, don't know."



Read it on Global News: [URL="http://www.globalnews.ca/timeline+shafia+family+murder+trial/6442509727/story.html#ixzz1cPjgyM5x"]Global News | Timeline: Shafia family murder trial[/URL]