Mother convicted of killing daughters in ‘honour killing’ ordered deported

By
Canadian Press
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31

MONTREAL — A woman found guilty of murdering her three daughters in a so-called honour killing was stripped of her permanent residency Thursday and ordered deported from the country.

But the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada’s expulsion order for Tooba Yahya will be executed only when she is released from a Quebec prison, her lawyer, Stephane Handfield, said in an interview.

Yahya, husband Mohammad Shafia and their son, Hamed, were each found guilty in 2012 on four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

The bodies of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, Mohammad Shafia’s childless first wife in a polygamous marriage, were found in June 2009 in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ont.

The Crown argued at trial the women were murdered because they refused to abide by the family’s rules.

Court heard that notions of honour, directly tied to women’s sexuality and general control over their behaviour, led the Shafias to kill in an effort to cleanse them of the shame they perceived their daughters to have brought upon them.

The family was originally from Afghanistan and lived in Montreal.

Handfield said the order to deport Yahya was recently requested by the Canada Border Services Agency.

“Why now? Why not before or later? I don’t know,” he said about the agency’s motives.

While Yahya is now without status in a Quebec prison, Handfield said nothing should change regarding her rights or conditions in detention.

“She’s never complained to me about her conditions in prison,” he said.

The Crown theory was that Shafia, Yahya and their son drowned the four victims either to the point of death or unconsciousness, placed their bodies in the car, then pushed it into the canal using the family’s other vehicle.

Prosecutors, however, couldn’t prove how or where the pre-drowning happened.

The family has been behind bars since their arrests on July 22, 2009.

Handfield said because Yahya isn’t a Canadian citizen and due to the first-degree murder conviction, she has no right under Canadian immigration law to appeal her deportation order.

“The country’s immigration laws could change between now and when she gets out,” Handfield said.

“We’ll have to see what is open to her when she is liberated.”

The Canadian Press

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31 COMMENTS

  1. As soon as any foriegner is found guilty of any crime here in Canada they should be sent back to their own country with no chance of ever getting back in.

  8. That’s what happens when you bring these people here. They can never be trusted and they are not Canadians. I don’t care how many papers the courts give them. They don’t even try to be Canadian and take on the Canadian way. Why can’t the government see this and get rid of the garbage before it stinks up our country. That’s how I feel about it all.

    • So a couple bad apples ruin the whole bunch? I guess you hate all white people, because most school shooters are white. I guess you hate all black people, because most gang violence is perpetrated by people of colour. I guess you hate all men, because some have committed sexual assault. I suppose you also hate all Christians, as some have shot up Planned Parenthood centres. See what happens when you generalize entire groups and subgroups of people? You dehumanize all the good ones, because you lack the capacity to see people as individuals. It’s disgustingly elementary.

    • They don’t even try to be Canadian and take on the Canadian way? Are you actually serious? I didn’t realize moving to a new country meant changing who you are and everything you believe in to conform to that particular country. Was I mistaken? I thought Canada was a free country, or do we force literally everyone to “be canadian” 🙄
      The only one not trying to be Canadian here is you, you’re going against a lot of what Canada represents when you say bullshit like this. We are a welcoming, friendly, and inclusive country, or at least I thought we were, the only thing that makes me ashamed of being Canadian, is sharing citizenship with people like you.

    • ^THIS.

      Now I will put forth, that I believe some degree of assimilation should be reasonably expected. For example, learning one of the official languages, finding work, driving on the right side of the road, what have you. However, that’s what the vetting process is for. For every one person who does something like this, there are tens of thousands of fine people who were properly vetted, and came here to find a better life. All you’ve done, “Queenb”, is demonstrate how much of a backwards simpleton you are, as you’re not able to distinguish anyone past the lines of race or ethnicity.

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