Typically immigrants arrive in a new land prepared to make sacrifices for the sake of their children. Mohammad Shafia, a native of Afghanistan, came to Canada in 2007 a wealthy man intent on imprisoning his daughters in an authoritarian household. And when they took steps to break free, a jury found Sunday, he murdered three of them along with his first wife.
A relative of Shafia’s second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, said in an interview Sunday it quickly became apparent after the Shafia family immigrated to Montreal that the patriarch had no interest in adapting to his new surroundings. (Yahya and the couple’s eldest son, Hamed, were also found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths.)
The roots of the obsession stretch back to Shafia’s native Afghanistan, where he was born in 1952. After his mother divorced his father and remarried, he did not get past Grade 8 in school, according to Wali Abdali, the brother of Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad.“He had a store in Kabul to repair radios and televisions. He started like that then gradually his business grew, he was buying televisions to sell, then importing televisions from Japan, to resell,” Mr. Abdali said in an interview from France. “That’s how he made his profits. It started with a small business.”
The two families were close, and in 1978 it was arranged that Shafia would marry Ms. Mohammad. “It was a joyous celebration,” Mr. Abdali said of the lavish wedding held at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel and attended by 300 guests. The bride’s family approved of the match. “He was a boy who did not drink, who did not smoke, who had a job,” Mr. Abdali said.Soon Afghanistan would be shaken by war, with the Soviets invading in 1979. Mr. Abdali fled across the border to Pakistan in the mid-1980s and news about his sister Rona was scarce. “It was wartime. Everyone was torn up,” he said.
Then he learned that Shafia had taken a second wife, a practice that is legal in Afghanistan. Ms. Mohammad had been unable to bear children, so Shafia married Yahya in 1988 and another celebration was held at the Intercontinental. The news did not overly upset Ms. Mohammad’s family, as there were signs that the wives would be on equal footing. “My brother-in-law presented both at the ceremony. I think it went well,” Mr. Abdali said.
It is not clear how Shafia amassed his fortune, but he was already rich by the age of 40. The court heard that when he left Afghanistan in 1992, he lost $200,000 in the transfer of $1.5-million worth of “goods” to Pakistan. Mr. Hyderi said he heard that Shafia at one point held a government posting in Kabul and would supplement his income by demanding bribes from the families of prisoners, promising to arrange their release. He said he is skeptical that Shafia could have become a multi-millionaire by selling electronics in war-torn Afghanistan and reselling damaged cars, as he would do later on. “This guy, if it’s so easy for him to kill three of his children, he could do anything,” Mr. Hyderi said.
After Pakistan, the growing Shafia family moved on to Dubai. Yahya eventually gave birth to a total of seven children; the three girls who were killed were Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17 and Geeti, 13. At trial, Shafia testified that he was “the top seller of Panasonic products” in all of Dubai. But while business was apparently good and there was little in the way of temptations for his daughters, immigration rules prevented them from getting citizenship in the United Arab Emirates.
There was one hitch with the move to Canada. Since polygamy is outlawed, they had to lie about the status of Ms. Mohammad. She initially stayed behind with relatives in France, and Mr. Abdali said he pleaded with her not to go to Canada.“But she said no, because of the children. She raised those children. She was their true mother,” he said. “She could not bear to be separated from the children, because she knew that if she wasn’t there, the father was a bit strict, a bit cruel.” Mr. Abdali said he tried to keep his nose out of Shafia’s business but one conclusion was unavoidable. “He was not religious as some have said. I never saw him do prayer. But he was a strict man who did not want anyone looking at his wife.” Ms. Mohammed left France and was granted entry to Canada as a cousin of Shafia.
Once in Canada, the climate in the household deteriorated quickly, as Shafia felt his iron grip slipping. Mr. Hyderi, 31, who immigrated to Canada in 2000, said the message was clear that Shafia expected total control over his children. He was insulted to hear that Shafia did not even want his girls mingling with their male cousins: “He said it was male cousins who open the door for female cousins to be prostitutes.” The first time he met Zainab at a family picnic, she was wearing a hijab and he avoided even shaking hands when he was introduced. “Normally I hug my cousins, and kiss them on the cheeks,” he said. Taking a hint, he had little contact with the Shafias, even though they lived nearby.
Ms. Mohammad also found herself under threat. Mr. Abdali said members of Yahya’s family made life miserable for his sister in Montreal, and an effort was underway to send her back to Afghanistan. He told her to go to the police if they tried to have her sent back, but she said she could not. “She was afraid,” he said. “She had threats that if she went to the police, we will kill you.”
Hasibullah Fazel, an administrator with Maison Afghan-Canadienne, which offer support to new arrivals, said he met Shafia a couple of times but never sensed anything was amiss. “They were a bit reserved, conservative people because they came from Dubai,” he said. Shafia was Muslim but not particularly religious, he said; he even remembers Shafia mocking clerics as insincere.
In the spring of 2009, Mr. Hyderi learned that Zainab was to marry her boyfriend, who was not an Afghan. After talking to Zainab, he could sense the marriage was a desperate move to escape her father’s control. He spoke to Yahya and offered to intervene with Shafia, who was away on business in Dubai, to make Zainab’s life easier.Yahya insisted that he butt out: “She said, ‘You don’t know Shafia. He’s very mean. He’s very selfish, and I’m afraid he’s going to come home from Dubai, and he’s going to hit her, or he’s going to make Hamed kill her.’ I said, ‘Tooba, what are you talking about. No father would do that.’ ”
He was on vacation with his wife in New York when he got news of the drownings. He knew immediately it was no accident.Despite the overwhelming evidence presented at trial, some in Montreal’s Afghan community have trouble accepting that the deaths were murder. “The parents were building a house for the sake of their children. How could they go and kill them?” asked Victoria Jahesh, who works with an Afghan women’s group in Montreal.
The wads of money smoothed Shafia’s entry into Canada, but his heavy cultural baggage proved his downfall. “With almost all immigrants, especially from the Afghan community, it is especially for the future of their children that they come,” Ms. Jahesh remarked. “They want to let them have access to the good education that is in Canada.”
“Be I dead or alive, nothing in the world is above your honour,” Shafia said. “Isn’t that right, my son?”
Below is the timeline of some of those events:
March 2008: Zainab, who was 19 when she died, is pulled out of school for several months by her parents after her brother discovers her together with her older boyfriend, Ammar Wahid, in the family home.
May 2008: Sahar, 17 when she died, complains about her home life to the assistant principal at Antoine-de-St.-Exupery High School in Montreal and tells her she has been ostracized by her parents, that her brother Hamed has assaulted her with scissors and that the situation is so bad that she has attempted suicide. The case is referred to Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, and a social worker meets with Sahar, who begs her not to contact her parents and then recants her allegations upon hearing that her parents must be called. The Shafia parents are summoned to a meeting with the social worker and deny Sahar's allegations. At a follow-up meeting, Sahar tells the social worker the situation has improved, and the case is closed.
When police arrive at the home, the younger sisters tell them they have been hit by their father and brother on several occasions, including for staying out late. They later recant their stories when police and a child welfare worker speak with them in the presence of their father. Police refer the case to child protection services. At least one officer believes there is enough evidence to lay charges, but that decision must be made by youth protection authorities.
April 20, 2009: A youth protection worker and a police investigator interview the younger Shafia children at Antoine-de-Saint-Exupery High School. At that time, the siblings report only one incident of Hamed Shafia using force and complain of a strict home environment. Geeti, 13 at the time of her death, tells police she wants to be placed in a foster home. Investigators decide there is not enough evidence to pursue the case.
Late April 2009: A school official summons the Shafia parents to express concern that Sahar and Geeti are frequently late or absent from class and that Geeti has accumulated 40 absences and is failing all of her classes. Sahar tells the official the girls are afraid to be in their home when their father is there.
May 2, 2009: Zainab returns home from the Passages women's shelter after her mother promises to allow her to wed Wahid, who is five years older than Zainab. The two wed on May 18 while Shafia is out of the country, but the marriage is annulled a day later.
May 2009: Geeti meets with a teacher and begs to be removed from the family home.
June 5, 2009: Zainab phones 911 to say that Wahid is threatening to kidnap her. She later tells police she made the call at the request of her mother.
June 30, 2009: The bodies of the three sisters and their father's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, are found in the Rideau Canal near Kingston, Ont.
source:internet
