Shafia - Maclean`s

Transcription

Shafia - Maclean`s

THE
SHAFIA
HONOUR
KILLING
TRIAL
EBOOK EDITION
BY MICHAEL FRISCOLANTI
The full story of a crime that shocked the nation
PLUS: Evidence photos, interrogation videos and more
CONTENTS
PART 1 ‘A SICK NOTION OF HONOUR’
PART 2 THE EVIDENCE
CHAPTER 1 An unthinkable crime
VIDEO The Interrogation: Tooba
CHAPTER 2 The roots of a tortured clan
VIDEO The Interrogation: Hamed
CHAPTER 3 A home becomes a snakepit
VIDEO The Interrogation: Mohammad
CHAPTER 4 A vicious plan takes shape
VIDEO The locks and motel
CHAPTER 5 Driving into the darkness
AUDIO Hamed’s 911 Call
CHAPTER 6 A cover story collapsed
PHOTOS The crime scene
CHAPTER 7 Wails and wiretaps
PHOTOS The Shafia house
CHAPTER 8 Shifting stories, twisting lies
PHOTOS The Shafia family
CHAPTER 9 Arrogant right to the end
TRANSCRIPTS Rona’s Diary
CHAPTER 10 Justice done, but so much lost
TRANSCRIPTS The Crown’s case
PART 3 FROM THE COURTROOM
WEEK 1 Portrait of a toxic household
WEEK 2 A mother’s damning interrogation
WEEK 3 A father’s denial, an uncle’s horror
WEEK 4 The son’s unbelievable story
WEEK 5 The Shafia sisters’ cries for help—
and the secret texts that helped seal
the case
WEEK 6 The bodies, a boyfriend and the
Crown’s final witness
WEEK 7 Shafia on the stand—and a son tries
to save his family
WEEK 8 Tooba Yahya’s ‘truthful’ testimony
WEEK 9 How the crime was committed
WEEK 10 Closing arguments and the verdict
MACLEAN’S EBOOK EDITION
CROWN EXHIBIT; PHOTOGRAPHS BY VINCENZO D’ALTO; CP
EBOOK EDITION
National
‘A SICK NOTION
OF HONOUR’
It was a case that shocked the nation—four family members
dead, three guilty of murder. Michael Friscolanti tells
the whole story of what happened.
FEBRUARY 13, 2012
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
CHAPTER 1
AN UNTHINKABLE
CRIME
The police diver who swam to the bottom of
the canal found Zainab Shafia in the front passenger seat, her face slumped forward, her
fingernails painted a light shade of blue. She was
19 years old and had 10 cents in her pocket. Her
black cardigan, drenched after hours underwater, was on backwards.
Sahar, her younger sister, was in the rear of the
sunken Nissan Sentra, dressed in a pair of tight jeans
and a sleeveless top. Her belly button was pierced
(a stud with twin stones) and her nails were polished two different colours: purple on the fingers,
black on the toes. As always, the stylish 17-yearold was within reach of her cellphone—about to
become a crucial clue for investigators above.
Geeti’s lifeless body was floating over the driver’s seat, one arm wrapped around the headrest,
the window beside her wide open. Like Sahar—
the big sister she idolized—Geeti had a navel ring
underneath her brown shirt. Detectives would
later find a note she had scribbled to Sahar, full
of hearts and red ink: “i WiSH 2 GOD DAT TiLL
iM ALIVE I’LL NEVER SEE U SAD!” She was 13.
Rona Amir Mohammad was slouched in the
middle back seat, her soaked black hair rubbing
against Sahar’s. At 52, she was the eldest of the
dead: the girls’ supposed “auntie,” but in fact
their dad’s first wife in a secretly polygamous
Afghan clan. The day she drowned, Rona put on
a blue shirt, three pairs of earrings, and six gold
Not at peace: (Previous page) The graves of the three
murdered Shafia daughters, in Laval, Que.
bangles. She was not wearing a seatbelt. None of
them were.
It was June 30, 2009, the morning before Canada Day. Det.-Const. Geoff Dempster was supposed to work the afternoon shift, two ’til midnight, but his cellphone rang a few hours early. A
colleague in the major crimes unit briefed him
about the car full of corpses at the Kingston Mills
locks, and asked him to come in as soon as possible. A few minutes after he arrived at police headquarters, three people showed up at the front
counter to file a missing persons report: Mohammad Shafia, the girls’ father, Tooba Mohammad
Yahya, their mother, and Hamed Shafia, their
18-year-old brother.
Dempster, a veteran cop with short blond hair
and a rookie’s face, spent most of that Tuesday
shift interviewing mom, dad and son, assuming,
at first, that they were grieving relatives devastated
to learn that their loved ones were gone. Their
initial stories, videotaped for accuracy, were essentially the same. Wealthy Muslim family. Recent
immigrants to Canada. Road trip to Niagara Falls,
the 10 vacationers split between the Sentra and a
silver Lexus SUV. Shafia, Tooba and Hamed all
told the detective that they had stopped at a Kingston, Ont., motel on the way home to Montreal,
and that Zainab grabbed the car keys to retrieve
some clothes. The next morning, the Nissan—and
nearly half the family—were gone. “That’s it,”
Shafia said. “I don’t know anything else.”
But that was hardly it, as the detective soon
realized. The more questions Dempster asked,
the stranger their story sounded. Why would
these women, after a six-hour road trip from
Niagara Falls, pile into the Nissan for a middleof-the-night joyride? Why did an eyewitness tell
on-scene investigators that he saw two cars at
the water’s edge that night? And why did the
Rona Amir Mohammad
Zainab Shafia
Sahar Shafia
Geeti Shafia
CP; CROWN EXHIBIT
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
Shafias show up at the station in a green minivan—not the silver Lexus they were driving during the vacation?
Hamed, not a tear in sight, told the detective
that he didn’t actually sleep at the motel with
the rest of his family. Instead, he climbed back
behind the wheel of the Lexus at two o’clock in
the morning and continued toward Montreal,
more than 300 km away. “I forgot my laptop,”
he explained. He was home for only a few minutes, he said, when his dad phoned to tell him
the girls were missing.
“How come you came back in the Pontiac?”
Dempster asked, referring to the minivan.
“No special reason,” Hamed answered, mumbling about how the Lexus “takes more gas and
fuel and stuff like that.”
“The reason for coming back in the Pontiac and
not the Lexus was because it’s better on gas?”
Dempster pressed.
“Well, that’s one of the reasons.”
“What would be another reason?”
“Nothing, uh, big,” Hamed replied. “Nothing,
ya know, that’s worth telling.”
What police discovered over the next three weeks
would tell a story so chilling, so unthinkable to
most Canadians, that the resulting trial captivated
the country like few crimes ever have. Mother,
father, and eldest son—motivated by an ancient,
barbaric “honour” code—used their Lexus to smash
that Nissan over the lip of the Rideau Canal, watching with perverted satisfaction as all four females
vanished into the water. “I am happy and my conscience is clear,” Shafia proclaimed the night before
his arrest, unaware that a police wiretap was recording his every word. “They haven’t done good and
God punished them.”
Today, a different punishment looms: life behind
bars. After four months, 58 witnesses, and too
many lies to count, a jury found Shafia, Tooba and
their beloved Hamed guilty of quadruple murder
in the first degree. It took just 15 hours of deliberation for the jurors to reach their verdict.
The evidence, utterly heartbreaking, left no
real doubt about the truth. Before they died, the
Shafia sisters were caught in the ultimate culture
clash, living in Canada but not allowed to be
Canadian. They were expected to behave like
good Muslim daughters, to wear the hijab and
marry a fellow Afghan. And when they rebelled
against their father’s “traditions” and “customs”—
covertly at first, then for all the community to
see—the shame became too much to bear. Only
a mass execution (staged to look like a foolish
wrong turn) could wash away the stain of their
secret boyfriends and revealing clothes.
Rona, it turns out, was simply a convenient
throw-in, the infertile first wife who died as she
lived. An afterthought.
“They committed treason from beginning to
end,” Shafia declared, during another one of his
intercepted rants. “They betrayed kindness, they
betrayed Islam, they betrayed our religion and
creed, they betrayed our tradition, they betrayed
everything.”
His daughters died because they were defiant
and beautiful and had dreams of their own.
Because they were considered property, not people. But the two words at the heart of this sensational case—“honour killing”—do not tell the
whole twisted tale. What happened on that pitchblack night is also a story about cries for help
that were missed or ignored. About sibling rivalry
and family snitches. About young love and oldfashioned police work.
And it’s a story about a custom-built courtroom, where father, mother—but not son—took
the stand to proclaim their innocence.
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
told the jury, the pride still evident in his raspy
voice. “I had the monopoly on importing those.”
Like many in Afghanistan, Shafia’s first marriage
was an arranged one. It was his mother who first
spotted young Rona Amir, the pretty daughter of
a retired army colonel. Three decades later, police
on the other side of the world would find Rona’s
By Western standards, Mohammad Shafia diary, detailing the events that led to her wedding
is not an educated man; born in middle-class day—and the years of “torture” that followed.
Kabul in the early 1950s, he didn’t reach the sev“[Shafia’s mother] invited all of us to her house
enth grade. But as an entrepreneur, he was gifted so that her son could have a good look at me,” she
and ambitious, a stingy deal-maker who turned wrote in her native Dari. “After our visit her son
a small electronics shop into a multi-million-dol- announced his consent.” When one of Rona’s
lar import-export operation. His specialties were brothers asked if she “accepted” the union, her
Panasonic radios and Peacock brand thermoses, answer was eerily prescient: “Give me away in
shipped in from Japan. “It was only me,” Shafia marriage if he is a good man; don’t if he is not.”
CHAPTER 2
Walk of shame: Shafia, his son Hamed, and his wife, Tooba Yahya
PHOTOGRAPH BY VINCENZO D’ALTO
THE ROOTS OF A
TORTURED CLAN
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
They were married in February 1979, with a
swank reception at Kabul’s Intercontinental
Hotel. The bride wore a frilly dress, baby blue,
with a matching veil. The groom sported a purple suit and long sideburns. In one wedding snapshot, Rona and Shafia are smiling beside their
cake, three layers covered in
pink and yellow icing. “After
getting married,” Rona would
later write, “my lot in life
began a downward spiral.”
Sadly, Rona was unable to
conceive. For years, she and
Shafia tried to have children,
even travelling to India for
repeated fertility treatments. Nothing worked.
“My husband started picking on me,” she wrote.
“He wouldn’t allow me to go visit my mother,
and at home he would find fault with my cooking and serving meals, and he would find excuses
to harass me.” Finally, after nearly a decade without a baby, she told Shafia:
“Go and take another wife,
what can I do?” He did.
Tooba Mohammad Yahya
was 17 years old, a relative of
one of Shafia’s friends. He was
double her age, old enough to
be her father.
Shafia said it was Rona who
handpicked his second bride, and Rona who happily planned the reception (at the same posh hotel,
with her in the wedding party). “She told me:
‘Children are important to us and I want you to
find another woman to marry,’ ” he said. “That
was her agreement.”
Rona’s recollection was somewhat different. “I
was visited with a new catastrophe.” (Tooba wasn’t
exactly thrilled, either. On the day of her arrest,
while sitting in the back of a police car, an officer
asked if she loved her husband. “I was not in love,”
she answered, in between sobs. “But I fell in love
after we got married.”)
In a photo from wedding number two, Shafia
is dressed in a black suit and matching moustache,
his new bride on one arm, his first on the other.
The wives called him “Shafie.”
They were not a family of three for very long.
Within weeks of the wedding, Tooba was pregnant with Zainab, the baby her new husband so
badly wanted. The moment wasn’t captured on
camera, and Shafia never mentioned it during
hours of police interviews and courtroom testimony. But in September 1989, he held his tiny
Vows: Rona and Shafia at their 1979 wedding
CP
‘After getting married,’
Rona would later
write in her diary,
‘my lot in life began a
downward spiral’
daughter for the first time,
cradling her in the same hands
that, years later, would take
her life.
At home, Rona played the
obligatory role of surrogate
mother, helping Tooba care
for the baby and tend to chores
while still praying for a child
of her own. Yet even then, in
the early months of their
polygamy, Rona realized what
was happening. Tooba, fertile
and conniving, had “schemed
to gradually separate” her
from their shared spouse.
“After their son Hamed was
born,” Rona wrote, “happiness left me.”
In a diary dripping with heartache, Sahar’s arrival, in October 1991, was a rare moment
of joy. Tooba “gave” the baby
girl to her barren fellow wife to
raise as her own.
But it wasn’t long before
Tooba made another announcement: “Shafie should stay three
nights with her and one night
with me,” Rona recalled.
“Because she had given Sahar
to me, I agreed.” Soon, Shafia Three’s a crowd: Shafia (centre) married Tooba; Rona wrote, ‘I was visited
with a new catastrophe’
stopped sleeping with his first
wife altogether.
Kingston Mills locks. And Shafia, Tooba and Hamed,
Sahar was still a baby when Afghanistan’s civil destined to stand trial for their murders.
war crossed into the capital city, killing hundreds
At the time, Tooba was pregnant with her fourth
and displacing thousands. The Shafias, fleeing by child, another daughter. The girl’s identity is procar, arrived at the Pakistani border as a family of tected by a publication ban (we’ll call her “A”).
six: Rona, Zainab and Sahar, destined to die at the But during the trial, jurors heard plenty of eviMACLEAN’S EBOOK EDITION
CP
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
dence about her eventual role in the Shafia household: a standout student who spied on her sisters
and reported back to mom and dad. “B,” a second
son, was also born in Pakistan. He, too, would be
cast as a family snitch, tattling on the girls and
defending his parents from the witness stand.
Geeti—the youngest daughter fished from the
canal—was baby number six. After she was born,
the family started packing yet again, this time
for the United Arab Emirates. Shafia launched
a new company (M. Shafee Trading) and business was better than ever; barely a year after
arriving in Dubai, Panasonic awarded him $50,000
for being the top seller in the region. He would
later expand his operation to include used cars
imported from the United States—purchased,
ironically enough, from online auctions that specialize in damaged vehicles.
It was in Dubai that Shafia’s kids tasted Western
culture for the first time. Although the UAE is an
Islamic country, the children attended a private
American school, where they wore uniforms,
learned to speak English, and met kids from around
the world.
For Rona, though, the move left her more marginalized than ever. She wrote about Tooba learning to drive, buying as much gold jewellery as
she pleased, and implementing “all the schemes
she had” to position herself as the preferred wife.
“Not aggressively, through shouting and quarrelling, but gently and smoothly, without putting herself at risk of any censure,” Rona recalled.
“Miserable me who wouldn’t question Shafie in
regard to anything swallowed everything without a word, because I had no option.” (While in
Dubai, Tooba gave birth for the final time. “C,”
now in foster care, is subject to the same publication ban as her siblings.)
Although the Shafias stayed in Dubai for more
than a decade, they spent much of that time
searching for a new home, a place that could offer
them citizenship, not just residency. At one point,
the family tried to immigrate to New Zealand,
but Rona didn’t pass the required medical. They
even spent a brief period in Australia, only to
return to Dubai within a year. (Tooba said she
and the children didn’t like Australia, but Rona
claimed they were deported because her husband—“the silly fool”—ignored the rules of his
visa and purchased property.) Whatever the reason, Rona felt the brunt of her husband’s wrath.
“Whatever I did, if I sat down, if I got up, if I ate
anything, there was blame and censure attached
to it,” she wrote. “In short, he had made life a
torture for me.”
By 2007, Shafia had finally found his ticket out
of Dubai: Quebec’s immigrant investor program,
which provides visas to affluent foreigners in
exchange for, among other things, a hefty cheque
made out to the province. (Back then, the required
amount was $400,000; it has since doubled to
$800,000.) Shafia had no trouble covering the
cost. His only challenge was figuring out how to
hide the truth about his two wives, a violation
of Canadian law that would have certainly derailed
his application. In the end, he listed only one
spouse on his paperwork: Tooba. So in June
2007, while the rest of the family boarded a plane
to Canada, Rona was sent to live with relatives
in Europe while Shafia concocted a plan to bring
her here. It was the first time she had ever been
separated from the others, and to her own surprise, she missed them terribly. “It was really
unbearable,” Rona wrote. “No one can read the
future. I wish I hadn’t [missed them] so much.”
One of the first things Shafia did when he
landed in Montreal was purchase a new car: a
silver Lexus SUV.
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
CHAPTER 3
A HOME BECOMES
A SNAKEPIT
Rue Bonnivet was a virtual prison, a remnant of
14th-century Afghanistan smack in the middle of
cosmopolitan Montreal. Although Shafia had
moved his daughters to the freest of countries
(and given them endless money to eat fast food
and buy expensive clothes) he expected them to
uphold his twisted sense of honour. Just talking
to a strange boy was enough to destroy the family’s reputation.
By the fall of 2007, six months after everyone
else arrived, Rona was finally on her way to Canada. She arrived on a temporary visitor visa, her
husband’s supposed “cousin” and live-in nanny.
Friends and relatives knew that Rona was Shafia’s
first wife, but until she died, the government had
no idea.
She was greeted by the same old Tooba. “Your
life is in my hands,” she would say, according to
On paper, at least, Mohammad Shafia was the
ideal immigrant investor, anxious to funnel his
fortune into Quebec’s economy. Within months
of his arrival, he bought a $2-million strip mall in
Laval (most of it in cash) and launched an importexport firm that dealt in clothing, household goods
and construction material. He settled on the
upscale suburb of Brossard to build his $900,000
mansion, with plenty of space for all 10 members
of the clan: himself, two wives, and seven kids.
While waiting for the home to be finished, the
Shafias spent two years squished
into a rental home in the borough of Saint-Leonard, split
between four bedrooms and
two bathrooms. They didn’t
even bother to unpack most
of the furniture from Dubai;
instead of beds, the children
slept on brown mats spread
out on the floor. It looked
hardly the home of a globetrotting businessman.
What happened between
those walls, from June 2007 to
June 2009, was the subject of
so much conflicting testimony
that not even the dead know
the full truth. But according
to the prosecution’s narrative,
gleaned through dozens of wit- Money down: Shortly after arriving in Quebec, Shafia bought a $2-million
nesses, that brick fourplex on strip mall in Laval
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
Rona’s diary. “You are my servant.” Rona moved
into a bedroom with Geeti and Sahar, their sleeping mats side by side.
The brothers, Hamed and “B,” shared another
bedroom, as did Zainab and her younger sister
“A.” The youngest, “C,” slept with mom and dad
in the master suite. Most nights, though, it was
just Tooba and the child, as Shafia spent much
more time in Dubai than he ever did in Montreal.
During those two years before his arrest, he was
in Canada for a total of only six months.
And during those many overseas business trips,
Hamed was left to enforce the house rules—his
father’s eyes, ears, and fists.
Zainab, though older, knew full well not to
cross her kid brother. They were attending the
same Montreal school in February 2008 when
a Pakistani classmate sent her a Valentine. She
responded with a covert email. “Be aware of my
bro,” Zainab wrote. “If my bro is around act like
complete stranger . . . we’ll talk if my bro is not
around coz i don’t want to give him the slightest
idea that we r friends.”
Ammar Wahid stuck to the ploy, but it didn’t
last long. Barely a month after that email, while
both her parents were visiting Dubai, Zainab
invited her new boyfriend to the house, unaware
that Hamed was on his way there, too. He found
Wahid hiding in the garage, shook his hand, and
asked him to leave. Zainab—18 years old—never
returned to that school, and for the next 10 months
she was essentially banished to her room. She
didn’t go to school, and couldn’t leave the house
without a relative at her side.
Sahar was trapped in her own silent hell. She
was 16, still adjusting to life in Canada, when her
mother accused her of kissing a boy. Tooba even
stormed into the school and cornered one of
Sahar’s teachers. (Her little sister, “A,” acted as
their mom’s translator.) “She was very angry,”
said the teacher, Claudia Deslauriers. “She said
she did not accept her daughter kissing a boy,
and that it did not fall within the parameters of
her values.”
Depressed and suicidal, Sahar peeled open one
of those white silica gel packets from a shoebox
and mixed it with water. Rona and Geeti were hysterical, rushing to Sahar’s side after she drank it.
But as Rona recalled in her diary, Tooba didn’t
budge from the kitchen: “She can go to hell. Let
her kill herself.”
Sahar didn’t die that night, but what she did
next helped seal her fate.
Batshaw, Quebec’s anglophone child welfare
agency, received the call on May 7, 2008. Red with
tears, Sahar was sitting in her vice-principal’s office,
spilling everything. Hamed flinging a pair of scissors at her hand. The suicide attempt. Pressure to
wear the hijab. “A” the spy. Sahar said her mother
had barely talked to her in months, and had ordered
the other kids to ignore her, too.
Evelyn Benayoun, a Batshaw intake worker, was
on the other end of the phone. “When I initially
asked what she wanted, she said: ‘I want my mother
to speak to me,’ ” Benayoun said. “She said she
was wishing to die that day, but didn’t know how
to kill herself.”
The veteran social worker classified the call as
a “Code 1,” immediately dispatching a colleague.
But when Jeanne Rowe arrived at Antoine-deSt.-Exupery high school, she encountered a very
different Sahar. Though still sobbing, she denied
everything. “Before I could even meet with her
properly, she kept saying: ‘I don’t want you to meet
with my parents. I want to go home,’ ” Rowe said.
“She was very, very scared of her parents knowing about the report. She didn’t explain why.”
Following protocol, Rowe did phone the house.
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
The unhappy home: All 10 members of the Shafia clan lived for two years in a four-bedroom rental in the
borough of Saint-Leonard
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
Inseparable: Sahar and boyfriend Sanchez
kill her if she leaves,” Vorgetts said.) And hovering over everything was her unsettled immigration status. Although her visitor visa had been
extended numerous times—and a lawyer was working on her application for permanent residency,
at Shafia’s expense—Rona’s life in Canada was
predicated on a lie, and could end at any time.
Shafia, it turns out, was also concerned about
her immigration file—for a very different reason:
if the government discovered the truth about their
relationship, the entire family could face deportation. The jury never heard this piece of evidence,
but Shafia allegedly offered the lawyer $10,000 to
somehow send Rona back to Afghanistan. A few months after her 19th birthday, Zainab
CROWN EXHIBIT
Tooba arrived at school first, Zainab in tow. She
refuted everything, including the suicide story.
(Zainab—under house arrest for her own defiance—
agreed with her mom, but she did tell the worker
that Sahar was “sad” about having to wear the
hijab.) Shafia walked in a few minutes later,
Hamed at his side. “He was quite angry, and he
wanted to know the source of the report,” Rowe
said. “I told him I could not give him the source,
and he said he would speak to his lawyer because
the report was nothing but lies.”
Two days later, when Rowe returned to the school
for a follow-up visit, Sahar was wearing a hijab.
“There were no tears, but she was still very cautious and minimized the situation,” Rowe recalled.
“You have to make an assessment if the child is at
risk. The child was not at risk at the time, she
wanted to go home, so we closed the case.”
At home, though, nothing changed. Rona spent
her days wandering through parks and using pay
phones to confide in relatives overseas. “She
would go outside and cry,” said Diba Masoomi,
her sister. “She was saying: ‘I am fed up with my
life and I want God to finish my life. I want to be
in an accident.’ ”
One relative was so concerned about Rona that
she put her in touch with another distant family
member: an Afghan women’s rights advocate living in Virginia. They never met face to face, but
in the year leading up to her death, Rona would
phone Fahima Vorgetts up to three times a week.
Not once did she call from the house. “She said
her husband would humiliate her and beat her
up,” Vorgetts recalled. “I encouraged her to take
classes, to learn something. She said she’s not
allowed to do that.”
Rona wanted a divorce, but didn’t want to leave
the children. Her husband ignored and abused
her, but wouldn’t let her go. (“He told her he will
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
was finally allowed to return to school (though not
the same one where she met Wahid). She took
morning classes by herself, and a French night
course with Hamed and her mother. During a rare
moment alone, she emailed her old boyfriend. “I
miss you bad,” she told Wahid. “I still rem the way
u told me u love me the first tym.” At the end of
the note, Zainab said she still cried about the day
her brother caught him at the house. “Babi work
hard,” she wrote. “Make sumthing out of ur self i
will be so happy.”
By the beginning of 2009, they were sneaking
visits once again. Sometimes at McDonald’s. Sometimes at the library. And sometimes with Sahar—
and her new boyfriend.
It was Zainab, defiant to the end, who first
introduced the couple. Ricardo Sanchez, a recent
immigrant from Honduras, was enrolled in her
French class. He was 21 at the time, four years
older than her younger sister, but Zainab wanted
him to meet Sahar so badly that she brought him
to her school. They could barely communicate
(he spoke Spanish, she spoke English) and for
the first little while, Ricardo thought her name
was Natasha. But they were soon spending every
possible moment with each other: lunch breaks,
weekend afternoons, 4 o’clock visits to a restaurant near the school. “It was very serious,” Sanchez testified. “We could get married, I was telling her. And she was agreeing.”
Sanchez was living with an aunt, Erma Medina,
when he first came to Canada. “Sahar told me
her parents didn’t know about her relationship
with Ricardo,” Medina said. “The day her parents knew, she would be a dead woman. She told
me that several times.”
Geeti knew about Sanchez. She knew everything about Sahar. They were as close as two sisters could be.
But Geeti, now 13, was her own breed of rebel.
She never lived a day in Afghanistan, and grew up
among the privileged at a Dubai private school.
Now in Canada, she had absolutely no interest in
her father’s conservative traditions—and didn’t
much care if he knew it. She loved makeup and
fashionable clothes, and on the days she didn’t
skip school, Geeti hid out in the bathroom.
During parent-teacher interviews, Shafia complained about his daughter pulling the same
antics in grade school, and asked that her behaviour be logged in a daily agenda book. “There
was an agreement reached,” said Fatiha Boualia,
her math teacher. The very next school day, Geeti
didn’t show up.
It was hardly a surprise, then, that Geeti was
at the centre of one of her father’s most violent
outbursts—a beating that became a focal point
of the trial.
In early April 2009, she was at a mall with her
sister and brother (“A” and “B”). When they arrived
home late, Shafia was so enraged that he and
Hamed lashed out at all three of them, screaming
and slapping. “A” and “B” would later downplay
the incident. Geeti, stubborn like a rock, did not.
For Zainab, who watched it all unfold, the abuse
had become unbearable. Days later, she made a
gutsy decision that rocked her family to the core.
She escaped.
Hamed was frantic enough to phone 911, telling the dispatcher that his older sister—a few
months shy of her 20th birthday—had run away.
“She stay at home usually,” he said. “She left a
note and, uh, she’s nowhere to be found.” Asked
what the note said, Hamed replied: “I would like,
uh, to live my own life.”
A few minutes after hanging up, Hamed called
911 again. “They didn’t come yet,” he told the
dispatcher.
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
CHAPTER 4
A VICIOUS PLAN
TAKES SHAPE
Zainab “ran away” on Friday, April 17, 2009,
taking refuge at a women’s shelter. For Shafia, it
was a monstrous betrayal. His adult daughter was
out in the world, unsupervised, unrestrained. She
could be having sex. And even if she wasn’t, people would think that, which is just as bad.
Her courage, her thirst for freedom, is what
got her killed just 10 weeks later. But what began
as a conspiracy to punish her, and only her,
quickly spiralled into mass murder. One bad
apple became two bad apples. Two became three.
And three became four.
The day Zainab left, news of her disappearance
trickled back to her teenaged siblings at school.
The four of them (Sahar, Geeti, “A,” and “B”) were
so terrified of their father’s reaction that instead
of going home, they went to a stranger’s house
and asked him to phone the police. Add in Hamed’s
attempts, and it was the third 911 call of the afternoon linked to the Shafias’ address.
Ann-Marie Choquette was one of the Montreal
constables who responded to the scene. She and
her partner found the kids standing on a street corner, still too afraid to go home, and escorted them
the rest of the way. Outside the house, Choquette
interviewed each of them, alone.
Geeti told the officers about the mall incident
the week before, how dad pulled her hair and
Hamed punched her in the face. She also said,
without hesitation, that Shafia “often threatened
that he was going to kill them.”
Choquette noticed that “A” had “a mark near
her right eye” and asked about the injury.What
“A” said has never been disclosed.
“B,” her brother, told the officers that Hamed
Spied on: At school the girls knew their siblings watched and reported on their every move
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
kicked him and that his dad threatened to “tear
him apart.”
Like Geeti, Sahar said Hamed had slapped her,
and that she watched as Shafia beat Zainab because
of her boyfriend. She and Geeti also said “they
wanted to leave the home because there was a lot
of violence” and “they were afraid of their father.”
The kids were still outside when Shafia pulled
into the driveway. According to Choquette, he
“just looked at the children” and they stopped
talking. In tears, “A” immediately recanted whatever it was
she said, insisting it wasn’t true.
A worker from DPJ, Quebec’s
francophone child welfare
agency, was also dispatched to
the house that night. (It was
Batshaw, the anglophone service, that responded to Sahar’s
original complaint the year before.) The social
worker spoke to Shafia, Tooba, and Hamed, but
decided it was safe to leave the kids and continue
his investigation after the weekend. Choquette
thought there was ample evidence to lay a criminal charge, but following standard protocol, she
left that decision to DPJ.
Choquette did see Shafia and Hamed again—
that Sunday, at the police station. They were anxious to know if she had any updates on Zainab’s
whereabouts. She didn’t.
On April 20, the Monday after Zainab left, the
case file landed on the desk of Laurie-Ann Lefebvre, a Montreal detective who worked the child
abuse beat. Accompanied by the DPJ worker, she
visited the kids’ school and re-interviewed three of
the four (“B,” the brother, was absent that day).
Although “A” continued to recant, the other two
did not back down. Geeti wanted “immediate placement” in foster care because “she had no freedom,”
while Sahar provided more details about her abusive older brother. When their dad was away, she
said, Hamed was “the boss.”
Sahar was wearing makeup and jewellery, and
no hijab. “She explained that she would change her
clothes at school in the morning, and again before
going home,” Lefebvre said.
No charges were laid. For reasons that remain
unclear, DPJ also closed its file.
The warning signs, though, were everywhere.
While Zainab was gone, Geeti
didn’t go to school for more
than a week. Sahar did, but was
often in tears, shielding the truth
about her sister by telling teachers and classmates she was in a
coma. At the end of April, their
daughter still in hiding, Shafia
and Tooba were summoned to
the school yet again, this time to discuss the kids’
slipping grades and poor attendance.
“The father was really in a state,” said Nathalie
Laramée, the assistant principal who convened the
meeting. “He was speaking very loudly in my office.
‘What can we do? What can we do?’ ” Shafia kept
repeating the word “policia.” After mom and dad
left the meeting, “B” told Laramée that the cops
did visit the house, but that things at home were
improving. When their brother left, though, Sahar
and Geeti told a much different story. “Sahar said:
‘My sister and myself are afraid in the house, and
we know that when we are in school we have to be
careful because our behaviour is reported back.’ ”
They had eight weeks to live.
‘Rona was afraid,’
said her sister. ‘I told her
this is not Afghanistan.
This is Canada.
Nothing will happen.’
Zainab was still in the shelter when Rona overheard a conversation so terrifying that she shared
it with her sister in France. “I will go to Afghanistan,” Shafia told Hamed and Tooba. “I will pre-
pare the documents, I will sell my property, and
According to Javid, Shafia called his daughter a
I will kill Zainab.”
“whore” and a “prostitute,” and outlined a plot to
“What about the other one?”
end her life and maintain his honour: Javid would
“I will kill the other one, too,” he said.
invite some of the family to Sweden, plan a picnic
Rona was sure that “the other one” was her. near some water, and they would throw Zainab in.
“She was shivering,” her sister said. “She was
Javid said he swore at Shafia and hung up the
afraid. I told her: ‘Don’t be afraid. This is not phone, then scrambled to warn both Tooba and
Afghanistan. This is not Dubai. This is Canada. another brother living in Montreal. His sister
Nothing will happen.’ ”
thanked him (“It’s very good
Eventually, Zainab did make
that you told me,” she said) but
contact with her mother. In fact,
for reasons that he never fully
it was Tooba who convinced her
explained, Javid didn’t directly
daughter to come back home,
warn his niece.
promising that if she really did
With Shafia out of the counlove Wahid, they could get martry, Sahar was spending even
ried. Zainab walked through
more time with Sanchez, her
the front door on May 1, 2009,
cellphone photos a chronicle of
right after her dad flew to Dubai
their young, forbidden love.
for another business trip.
Cuddling on a living room chair,
As the wedding day
her arm wrapped around his.
approached, Tooba kept presSmiling in a pair of sunglasses,
suring her daughter to back out.
his hand resting on her stomShe even enlisted the help of
ach. In one shot, Sanchez is not
one her brothers, Fazil Javid,
wearing a shirt. In another, the
who ran a pizza parlour in Swecouple is standing on a porch,
den. But after numerous teleSahar wearing a short jean skirt
‘Cruelty’: Zainab saw marriage as
phone conversations, Javid said
and a yellow top. They were
an escape
he realized exactly what Zainab
talking about running away to
was doing. “She wanted freedom,” he explained. Honduras. “She loved Ricardo,” his aunt recalled.
“She said: ‘I know it’s not my time to get married, “She told me that she would love him till death.”
but I’m forced to marry to get out of this house.’ ”
Part of Sahar’s dream was to rescue Geeti. At
At the very least, Javid wanted to travel to Mon- school one day, she asked Boualia, their math teacher,
treal to meet Wahid and his family, to make sure if she would be allowed to take her little sister if she
the Pakistani could provide a proper life for his ever moved out. Boualia advised against it, telling
niece. Out of respect, he phoned his brother-in- Sahar that a 13-year-old girl belongs with her parlaw in Dubai to make sure he accepted such a ents. When Geeti found out, she was inconsolable,
visit. “But Shafia had a request for me,” Javid to the point that Boualia and a vice-principal spent
said. “He told me this plan he has to fulfill: the an entire lunch hour trying to calm her down.
murder of Zainab.”
Geeti didn’t show up to school for days. When
CP
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
before the bodies were found.
“Everyone, their heart was
bleeding,” Hyderi said. “Marrying a foreigner affected
everybody.”
The next morning, before
the reception, Zainab had her
hair styled and her hands
painted with henna. Hyderi
drove her to the restaurant,
and on the way he tried to counsel Zainab, one last time, to
reconsider the marriage. But
her answer was clear. “Dear
uncle, there has been a lot of
cruelty toward me,” she said.
“I sacrifice myself for my sisters so they will get this freeDevoted: Rona wanted a divorce, but didn’t want to leave the girls, includdom after me.”
ing Sahar
That freedom, it turned out,
she died seven weeks later, police found a page was short-lived. Nobody from the groom’s family
in one of her notebooks, full of affectionate doo- showed up (ironically enough, they didn’t approve
dles to her big sister.
of the union, either) and her mother was in tears,
S+G 4LYFE
the embarrassment too much to stomach. “Tooba
i DON’T KNOW if ONE DAY YOU LEAVE THiS just fainted,” Hyderi recalled. “She fell on a chair.
HOUSE WAT AM i GONNA DO????
People were throwing water on her. Zainab threw
i PROMiSE BEFORE DYING i’LL MAKE UR herself on the chest of her mother and said: ‘If you
WISHES CUM TRUE ONE BY ONE
do not agree, I will reject this boy.’ ”
Back at home, Zainab could not be dissuaded.
Like so much about the Shafias, the events of that
She was going to marry Wahid, regardless of what day depend on who is doing the remembering. But
her family thought. So with Shafia still in Dubai— one thing is certain: Zainab asked for a divorce, and
murder already on his mind—Tooba phoned an Wahid agreed. “She said: ‘I can’t do this, I can’t ruin
uncle, Latif Hyderi, and asked him to organize the my family’s reputation,’ ” Wahid said. “Obviously,
nikah, the Islamic marriage ritual. The Shafias, we loved each other, so it hurt both of us.”
hardly religious to begin with, had not stepped foot
The mullah declared them divorced right at the
in a mosque since arriving in Canada. Hyderi made restaurant. They were husband and wife for barely
all the arrangements, finding a mullah and book- 24 hours.
ing a restaurant for the reception.
Back at Hyderi’s house, Tooba was still bawlThe ceremony took place on May 18, six weeks ing. But by the end of that night, a plan was
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THE SHAFIA TRIAL
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
already hatched to restore the family honour (or,
as Hyderi put it, to “remove the stain from Zainab’s skirt”). She would marry one of his sons, a
good Afghan boy.
When Hyderi phoned Dubai, Shafia seemed to
approve of the idea. He made it clear, though, that
he didn’t want the boy anywhere near his daughter until he returned to Canada. “He said: ‘I’m
not happy. She didn’t do a good thing,’ ” Hyderi
recalled. “He said: ‘If I was there I would have
killed her.’ ”
out my dream being full filled.”
The very next day, June 3, someone in Dubai
conducted a Google search on Hamed’s Toshiba
laptop: “Can a prisoner have control over their
real estate.”
That Monday, June 5, Sahar told a teacher how
worried she was. As the teacher put it, “she was
afraid that her brother was going to tell her father
that she was a whore.” The 17-year-old was in such
a state that the teacher phoned DPJ, yet again. The
worker on the other end suggested that she find a shelter.
A few days later, inside a difIn Dubai, the Google searches
ferent restaurant, Sahar was
continued: “canada mountains
hugging Sanchez. By the time
with lake in Quebec.”
she noticed her younger brother
At school that Monday, Sahar
walk in, it was too late. “He
met with another social worker.
started to ask if Sahar was my
Like so many times before, she
girlfriend,” Sanchez said. “I told
told Stephanie Benjamin about
him we had just met.” Desperate to conceal the her tyrant of an older brother and her desire to
truth, Sanchez even kissed one of Sahar’s friends. find a job. She also opened up about her ultimate
Sahar was petrified that “B” would reveal her dream: to become a gynecologist and help women
secret. On May 30, exactly one month before she in her native Afghanistan.
died, she fainted in class and had to be rushed
The next night, June 9, Zainab sent another
to a hospital.
email to Wahid. She had not seen her dad since
But by then, it appears, her secret was already fleeing the house, and he was due home in just a
exposed. On June 1, Hamed hopped on a plane to few days. “i mst go to da airport n say srry,” she
join his father in Dubai, and when investigators wrote. “i hope he 4gets every thing.” She would
later searched the house, they found that boarding be dead in three weeks.
pass stuffed inside his suitcase—along with numerous photos of Sahar and Sanchez, taken straight Geeti was hardly going to school at all. She was
from her cellphone and developed into prints.
failing all four classes, and the one day she did bother
They were proof of her dishonour. Proof that to show up, a vice- principal sent her home for wearshe, too, deserved to die.
ing a low-cut sweater. While Shafia was gone, Geeti
As soon as her brother left, Zainab sent another was also caught shoplifting at Wal-Mart; she tried
email to her now ex-husband. “We had an amaz- to steal a pink camisole and some leggings.
ing love story 2gether,” she wrote. “It was my dream
Geeti was growing more brash, more unconto marry u n i did it once soooo nw even one day trollable, by the day. She told anyone who’d listen
if sum thing happens to us like dead I wnt die with that she wanted out of the house. And as Hamed
Geeti was growing more
brash and would not
keep quiet if her sisters
showed up dead.
So she, too, had to die.
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
and her parents no doubt realized, she would not
keep quiet if Zainab and Sahar turned up dead.
She would be the first one to call the cops and
blow the whistle.
She, too, had to die.
That June, Fahima Vorgetts, Rona’s relative in
Virginia, returned home after a month spent working in Afghanistan with her U.S.-based group Women
for Afghan Women. On her phone were numerous
voice mails from Rona: “I really need to talk to you.”
“They were desperate messages,” Vorgetts recalled.
“It sounded like she was in big trouble. It seemed
to me like she wanted to do something.” But because
Rona always used a pay phone, Vorgetts had no
way to reach her. “She never called back. And then
I heard that she was dead.”
Shafia and Hamed landed in Montreal on June
13, 2009. By all accounts—including his own—
Shafia kissed Zainab on the head and forgave her
for everything. (In his version, he also slipped her
$100.) But nothing, of course, was truly forgiven.
He just wanted his daughter to feel comfortable,
to assume that things were fine.
Back at the house, the Google searches intensified.
“mountains on water in quebec”
“to rent a boat in montreal”
“facts documentaries on murders”
On June 19, Hamed cancelled Zainab’s cellphone
plan. The day after that, his mobile phone travelled
all the way to—and all the way back—from rural
Grand-Remous, Que., nearly 300 km from their
Montreal neighbourhood. His Internet research
had escalated into full-blown reconnaissance.
At home that night, Hamed’s laptop conducted
yet another Google query: “where to commit a
murder.” His sisters and his stepmother had 10
days to live.
On June 22—the morning after Father’s Day—
Sanchez typed a text, in Spanish, to Sahar. “I love
you with all my heart and I can’t love anybody
more beautiful than you because you are like the
air that I breathe every morning, the sun that
warms me up,” he wrote. “I want only you to be
the owner of my heart.” Thirty minutes later, he
sent another: “The only thing that I would wish
in this world is to have you every day of my life.”
A few hours after Sahar read that message, her
father purchased a used car: a 2004 Nissan Sentra, black with grey interior. The next afternoon,
the trunk was full of luggage, packed for a summer “vacation.”
CHAPTER 5
DRIVING INTO
THE DARKNESS
As far as the children knew, they were going on
a road trip to Vancouver. Or Niagara Falls. Or
somewhere else. The destination was never clear.
But that’s because the destination was not the
point. Going on “vacation” was all part of the plan.
On the way out of town, while stopped at a
fruit store, the family caravan bumped into Latif
Hyderi. By then, Tooba’s uncle was anxiously
waiting to hear from Shafia to finalize the engagement plans for Zainab and his son. “Tooba looked
very scared, and she was in an unusual condition,” Hyderi recalled. “I told her: ‘This girl is
our trust with you. You have to bring her back
safe and sound.’ ” He watched them drive away.
When Fazil Javid heard about the vacation, he
couldn’t stop thinking about that phone call with
his brother-in-law. The trip to Sweden. The picnic
by the water. The murder of Zainab. “I was seeing all those scenes like a movie,” he said. “I thought
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
something was going to happen.”
So many details—the car-ride chatter, the reststop meals, the hushed whispers between conspiring killers—will never be fully known. But because
Sahar spent so much of the journey rifling off text
messages, investigators were able to retrace the
family’s precise route, minute by minute, cell
tower by cell tower.
Split between the Lexus and the Nissan, the
Shafias left Montreal shortly after 3 p.m. on June
23. They headed straight to Grand-Remous, the
same faraway place that Hamed visited the day
his laptop was churning out hits for “where to
commit a murder.” When they arrived, just before
sunset, the sisters met a woman walking some
puppies. Sahar snapped a photo of Geeti holding
one of the dogs, the fur pressed up to her face.
Shafia and Hamed took a walk.
If Grand-Remous was supposed to be the crime
scene, something altered the original plan. Because
after sleeping at a motel—and stopping for a waterside barbecue of chicken kebabs—the family got
back inside the cars on June 24 and headed south
toward Ottawa. Plotted on a map, their trip to
that point was basically a 450-km horseshoe.
As investigators discovered, the route got even
more suspicious.
Barrelling westbound along Highway 401,
through Brockville and Gananoque, Sahar’s text
messages pinged off each passing cell tower. But
for at least 40 minutes—between 8:36 p.m. and
9:16 p.m.—her phone utilized just one: a tower
within plain sight of Kingston Mills, a historic lock
station at the southern tip of the Rideau Canal.
As bathroom stops go, it wasn’t close to the highway. Sahar continued typing, unaware that another
Check out: The night of the murders, Hamed and Shafia booked two rooms for just six guests
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
reconnaissance mission was under way.
Back in the car, the family kept driving all the
way to Niagara Falls, reaching their motel in the
wee hours of the morning, June 25.
If the cellphone photos were the only evidence,
Sahar was a typical teenager on a typical family
vacation. She snapped a shot of her and Zainab
standing in front of the bathroom mirror. Her
and Rona dressed for dinner. Herself in a green
and brown bikini. But her actual phone records
revealed something much more sinister, providing police with one of their most critical clues.
On the night of June 27, just two days after the
Shafias arrived in Niagara Falls, someone using
Sahar’s phone dialled Hamed’s number. The
resulting signal bounced off a tower just 16 km
from the Kingston Mills locks. Hamed or Shafia
(or both) had left the rest of the family and driven
five hours back, to stake out their chosen crime
scene one last time.
Sahar (if it was her who dialled the number) had
no way of knowing that Hamed’s cell was all the
way in Kingston. Only after she died, when investigators scoured her phone logs, did that lead
come to light. But what is clear is that Sahar seized
on her brother’s absence, talking to her boyfriend
for more than an hour that night. They snuck in
two more calls the next morning.
That afternoon, June 28, Sanchez rifled off more
text messages, each one professing his love. “The
world is so large that one day I could lose you,”
he wrote. “Every time I close my eyes I only think
of you. And every time I close my eyes I only want
to see you.” The last one arrived at 6:19 p.m. “If
I had the moon, the sun, the sky or the sea or the
stars at this moment, I would give all of it to you,
my love,” it said. “The only thing at this moment,
what I have is my love and my heart and many
kisses to give you forever, my love.”
The Shafias checked out of the Days Inn on
June 29, 2009. A surveillance camera in the lobby
recorded Hamed paying the bill for both rooms
(in cash, of course). It was 8 p.m. by the time the
cars steered onto the highway, just another part
of the master plan. Leaving so late would ensure
that the victims were sleeping, or at least groggy,
when the ambush came.
According to the prosecution’s version of events—
the story the jury ultimately believed—this is what
happened next.
With the Lexus in the lead, Hamed at the wheel,
the caravan drove east along the Queen Elizabeth
Way, Sahar thumbing message after message. 7:59.
8:03. 8:07. 8:10. 8:26. Approaching Toronto, they
took a scenic detour, heading downtown. At 9:39
p.m., from inside the Nissan, Sahar took a picture
of the Rogers Centre. Three minutes later, she
snapped a night shot of the CN Tower.
The cars steered north onto Yonge Street and
up through the city, turning east on Highway 401.
As the clock approached 10:30 p.m., they stopped
at a roadside McDonald’s in Ajax. During the bathroom break, Tooba had a brief conversation, less
than two minutes, with another one of her brothers (who cannot be identified). He was worried, it
seems, checking to make sure Shafia had not followed through on his homicidal threats.
At 10:54 p.m., as the cars pressed on, Sahar
received another call from a friend. They spoke
for 37 minutes. It was the last time she answered
the phone or replied to a text.
The cars coasted through the darkness, past
Trenton, past Belleville, past Odessa. By now,
prosecutors believe Shafia was behind the wheel
of the Nissan, driving the doomed. They went
right past all the major exits for Kingston, the
ones full of signs for hotels and fast food. At
Highway 15, the city’s final off-ramp, they turned
north and steered toward the locks. It was almost had bruises on the top of their heads, suggesting
1:30 in the morning. At 1:36, Sahar’s phone some kind of blow in those final moments. Dead,
received its last text message above ground. It or at least unconscious, the bodies were piled back
was from Sanchez.
inside the Nissan, the front seats reclined.
As the killers predicted, the Nissan passengers
The idea was to stage a traffic accident, to conwere in various states of sleep as they pulled into vince the cops that they were dealing with a tragic,
the Kingston Mills parking lot.
Shafia got out of the Nissan.
Tooba got in.
It was her job to stay with
the four corpses-to-be while
her husband and son went
“looking” for a motel. The
girls would have no reason to
be suspicious. No reason to
run. They were with their
mother, after all. If Tooba
wrestled with any second
thoughts, an urge to warn her
daughters about their impending execution, she fought it.
Five minutes away, at the
Kingston East Motel, Shafia
Click here to hear Hamed report the fake accident
and Hamed woke up the manager. They needed two rooms
Dented alibi: Shards from the damaged Lexus would help police
for the night. When asked how
many guests were staying, they seemed confused. late-night joyride. But as one of them drove the
Six? Nine? They settled on six. Hamed handed car to its final resting place, doubt must have crept
over the cash.
in. Just to reach the water’s edge, the Nissan had
After dropping off the other three children to jump a high curb, drive across some grass, make
(“A,” “B,” and “C”), Shafia and Hamed drove out a hard left around a rock outcropping, then a quick
of the parking lot, turning left toward the locks. right around a narrow wall. The route looked nothWhen Tooba saw their headlights in the distance, ing like a split-second wrong turn.
she jumped out of the Nissan and ran toward
Once in position, the driver left the engine runthem. The time had come.
ning, got out, reached through the open driver’s
The exact location remains a mystery, but some- side window, and moved the gear shift into first—
where at that secluded lock station, the four women assuming, on its own power, that the car would
were held underwater, one by one, until they plunge over the concrete lip and into the water.
stopped moving. Three of them (all but Sahar) It didn’t happen.
CROWN EXHIBIT
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
The front wheels went over the ledge, but nothing else. The car teetered in the night, tires spinning, engine running, four bodies inside. The plan,
flawed from the beginning, was now in crisis.
One of the three reached through the window
and turned off the ignition. But the bigger problem remained, dangling in plain sight. Red-handed,
they had only one choice: drive the Lexus behind
the car, and ram the dead the rest of the way.
The collision shattered the SUV’s left headlight, leaving bits of plastic scattered on the
ground. Before speeding away, the killers scrambled to pick up each of the broken shards. They
didn’t get them all.
CHAPTER 6
A COVER STORY
COLLAPSES
Hamed did call the police that morning—from
Montreal. At 7:55 a.m., just hours after the Nissan
sank, he reported a single-car fender-bender in an
empty parking lot near their house. He told the
responding cop that he accidentally smashed the
left front end of the Lexus into a yellow utility pole.
At 8:30, he phoned the Kingston East Motel
and spoke to his father. Then he dialled Sahar’s
cell, knowing full well it was submerged in the
canal; when the call went straight to voice mail,
he phoned again. By then, Hamed was behind the
wheel of the family’s green Pontiac minivan, speeding back to Kingston.
He was in such a rush to switch the cars—and
stage a bogus accident—that he took everyone’s
luggage, including his mother’s purse, with him
to Montreal.
Back at the motel, Hamed and his parents
dropped the other children at a nearby Tim Hortons and initiated the next phase of their plan:
the missing persons report. They walked into
police headquarters just after 12 o’clock.Hamed,
if not all three, had been awake the entire night.
At the locks, investigators were already combing the scene, alerted to the sunken sedan by a
Parks Canada employee earlier that morning. It
didn’t take long for police at the station to make
the connection. Escorted into a private room, the
trio was told what they already knew: their relatives
were dead, discovered in a bizarre, watery grave.
If Shafia shed any tears at the news, they were
gone by 3:45 p.m., when he sat down with Det.Const. Dempster for his tape-recorded interview. Composed and coherent, he talked about
his business interests overseas, the $2-million
shopping mall in Laval, and Zainab’s pending
engagement plans. “It wasn’t a hundred per
cent,” he explained, his Dari answers translated
by a Farsi interpreter (Farsi and Dari are essentially the same, like British English and American English). Shafia also mentioned, without
being asked, that his kids liked to “turn on the
car and take it away.”
He said they stopped in Kingston early that
morning because his wife, driving the Nissan, was
feeling “dizzy” and needed to sleep. So she waited—
with the “ones who are no longer”—while he and
Hamed went searching for a place to sleep. When
the Nissan rejoined them at the motel, Hamed
left for Montreal “to work on the building or something” and everyone else went to bed. And that’s
when Zainab and Sahar asked for the keys to
retrieve some clothes from the trunk.
Gentle but pressing, Dempster kept returning
to a portion of the story that, 2½ years later, was
a key sticking point at trial. Where did Tooba wait
A watery grave: The dubious story offered up was that Zainab took the car for a deadly spin
CP
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
while the Lexus looked for the motel? And how
did she know where to meet them afterwards?
The truth, of course, is that the Nissan waited
at the locks parking lot—and never made it to the
motel. But in order to sell their dubious story—
that Zainab, with no licence and no permission,
took the car for a deadly spin—they had to tell the
police that it did get there. So when Dempster
asked the obvious question (where did Tooba wait
for the Lexus?), Shafia couldn’t
tell him the truth because it
was the precise spot where his
daughters died.
“I don’t know the place,
exactly, because I am not familiar here,” he said. But it was
somewhere in the city, he said,
not off the highway. “From there
we got the hotel, my wife arrived to the hotel, we
stopped the car, and there was nothing else.”
“How did your wife know which hotel to go to?”
Dempster asked.
“You know, the distance was little,” he said.
Still puzzled, Dempster asked another obvious
question. “What do you think happened,
Mohammad?”
“I just woke up in the morning and didn’t see
them, that’s it,” he answered. “I don’t know anything else.”
“You know the car, your car, the Nissan, was found
underwater,” he continued.
“You said it,” Shafia answered.
“Any thoughts, any idea, how it got there?”
“No, no, no, not at all,” he said. “Because this
is the first time such an incident has befallen
me.” As he left the interview room, Shafia checked
his watch.
Hamed did not need the interpreter. Fluent in
English and Dari, he looked like any other 18-year-
old Canadian, with Air Jordan warm-up pants and
a mop of curly black hair. When Dempster asked
if he wanted some tea or coffee, he replied: “Oh no,
it’s all good.”
Dempster asked Hamed the same question he
asked his dad: where did Tooba wait with the Nissan? “I think it was a McDonald’s or something,”
he said. “I’m not sure.”
Once they reached the motel, Hamed said he
plopped on a bed for a few minutes, just long enough to hear
Zainab ask for the keys. Then
he and the Lexus left for
Montreal.
Why Montreal? Hamed’s
reasons ranged from “something personal” to “I forgot my
laptop” to sometimes “you
don’t feel like staying at one place with your parents, ya know?” Each new response only made
Dempster that much more suspicious.
“Hamed, do you know what happened to your
sisters?” he asked, point blank.
“No.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
Still doubtful, Dempster told Hamed about
an eyewitness (an eight-year-old boy, it turned
out) who had just spoken to an investigator on
scene. According to his story, there were two cars
at the water’s edge, but only one—the bigger
one—drove away.
“You mean someone pushed them in?” Hamed
asked.
Up until that point, Dempster had never suggested such a scenario. “Hamed, I think you
know more than what you’ve told me here today,”
he continued.
“I have no idea,” Hamed answered. “You mean
Tooba—three
daughters dead, her life
supposedly destroyed—
told her story as if only
the car was lost
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
someone must have, uh, uh, together? Must have
come together with them?”
“I’m not saying that person caused it to happen,” Dempster said. “I’m not saying they did it
on purpose, but there is somebody out there that
knows what really happened and we need that
person to speak up.”
Hamed said he was “shocked” by the suggestion.
“If I would have witnessed something, I would be
the first person to tell my mom and dad,” he insisted.
“How would I feel inside?”
Dempster made it clear he wasn’t accusing anyone of anything. But just to be sure, he said the
Montreal police were going to swing by the house
and take a peek at the Lexus.
When Tooba took her turn in the interview
room, Dempster got right to the point. “What I
am trying to understand, and I think what everyone wants to know, [is] how the car got from the
motel to the water,” he said.
“Can I say?” she answered.
“Yes, please.”
Tooba said she was the one who steered the Nissan into Kingston, but was too “tired” and “nauseous” to go any further. She parked (somewhere)
and waited for the others to find a place to sleep.
“When they got the motel, they wanted to come to
get me,” she explained. “But I came myself.” She
was changing for bed, around 2 a.m., when Zainab
walked in and asked for the keys. “I don’t understand what happened after that.”
Tooba—three daughters dead, her life supposedly destroyed—told her story as if only the car
was lost. No tears. No emotion. But she did make
sure to point out that her eldest daughter was in
a “hurry” to get back to Montreal. Tooba even
claimed that Zainab—who, again, didn’t have a
licence, let alone highway experience—was begging to drive during the trip back from Niagara
Falls. “She would do whatever she wanted to do,”
Lexus headlight pieces
Gate
Clues: To reach the locks, the car had to navigate a high curb and wall; fragments of a broken headlight;
cellphones mapped the doomed route
CP; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY LEVI NICHOLSON; CROWN EXHIBIT
Location of Sentra
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
Tooba said. “I think she thought: ‘My mom and
dad are asleep, let’s go for a drive and return.’ ”
“Were you there when the car went in the water?”
Dempster asked, a few minutes later.
“No, no, I wasn’t there,” she said.
“If you were not there, my job is to find out what
happened, and tell you,” he continued. “As a parent, one parent to another, if something happened
to my child, I would want to know the truth.”
Tooba nodded in agreement. “I would have told
you everything, but I haven’t seen anything,” she
said. “If I knew I would have told you, and you could
have helped me.”
Dempster leaned in closer. “People have not been
truthful with us today.”
At 8:40 p.m., the sun setting over the crime
scene, Hamed was back in the interview room,
arms folded. As promised, an investigator had
contacted the Montreal police—and Dempster
now knew about the single-car smash-up that
morning. “Why are you hiding that information
from me, Hamed?”
His answer was immediate: “If I would tell you,
you would go tell my dad.”
Hamed said he was on his way to grab some
breakfast when he accidentally smacked the pole,
and just didn’t want his father to find out until
after everyone got home. “I don’t know where
you’re going with this, honestly,” he said. “I didn’t
chase her, man.”
“Did your dad?” Dempster asked.
“No.”
Why were the girls cruising around the outskirts
of Kingston at 2 o’clock in the morning? Were they
hungry? Scared? Sneaking back home? “I don’t
know, ya know?” Hamed said. “I want to find this
out as much as you.”
Out of questions, Dempster left Hamed alone in
the interview room. For seven minutes, the camera
still rolling, the 18-year-old got a preview of life
inside a small space. He flexed his biceps, flipped
through his wallet, and picked his nose.
In Montreal, Ricardo Sanchez was dialling his
phone, desperate to reach Sahar. He would call her
number 22 times over the next three days, each
attempt forwarded to voice mail.
CHAPTER 7
WAILS AND
WIRETAPS
Sahar’s white body bag—#0000200—was the
first on the autopsy table. Dr. Christopher Milroy
had been briefed on the basics (Niagara Falls, submerged car, open window) and as he examined
the young corpse in front of him, he filled his clipboard with meticulous notes. The memory stick
in her pocket. The belly button ring. The potatoes
in her stomach, most certainly french fries from
that Ajax McDonald’s. Sahar was “a well-nourished and well developed female,” he concluded.
“There were no fresh injuries.”
Rona, like all of them, had “washerwoman hands,”
wrinkled like prunes after so long in the water. Her
eyes were brown, her hair was black, and her heart
was the heaviest of the four: 300 g. On page eight
of his report, Milroy noted—oblivious to the full
significance—that Rona was “non-pregnant.”
It wasn’t until Dr. Milroy peeled back the skin on
her skull that he discovered the red and black bruises.
Both were on the crown of Rona’s head, covering
six centimetres in diameter. “It is a very substantial
area of bruising,” he said. “It could occur in one
impact or it could be the result of two impacts.”
Geeti, third on the table, had nearly identical
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
bruises on her head, though smaller. So did
Zainab. “It is unusual that all three would have
similar injuries,” the pathologist testified. “It
clearly requires explanation.”
That explanation would never come. Science
could confirm only three things for sure: the head
injuries occurred while the victims were still alive
(the dead can’t be bruised), the official cause of
death was drowning, and there were no drugs or
other paralyzing substances found in the women’s
blood. Were they knocked
unconscious before the water
filled their lungs? Did they actually drown in the canal, or
somewhere else beforehand?
Were they dead or alive when
the Nissan sank? As Milroy put
it, “the pathology is neutral.”
But outside the autopsy room,
investigators were piecing together other important clues—literally.
The day the bodies were found, while Hamed
was dodging questions about his parking-lot “accident,” an observant constable named Rob Etherington noticed something near the locks: tiny
shards of plastic, seven pieces in all. The next
afternoon, with Shafia’s permission, Det. Steve
Koopman drove to Montreal to see the mysterious SUV with his own eyes. In the trunk, he found
more broken bits of plastic, these ones obviously
from the dented front end (which, of course,
Hamed blamed on the yellow post).
It was Etherington, examining both bags of plastic, who made the stunning connection. Each fragment—the ones from the locks, and the ones from
the Lexus—fit together like a puzzle. Clearly, the
Nissan had not been alone that night.
The investigation, just 72 hours old, was now a
homicide file.
For the suspects, like their victims, things unravelled at a furious pace. While Shafia and Tooba
were granting tearful interviews to the media,
detectives were quietly learning the truth about
life inside their home. The 911 calls. The child
welfare complaints. Zainab running away. Rona’s
true identity. Fazil Javid. Latif Hyderi. Honour.
When investigators seized the Lexus on July 10,
they found two curious photographs inside the
console; both were of Sahar’s boyfriend. A week
later—just 17 days after the
women died—a judge authorized the use of wiretaps.
In a classic ruse, police invited
Shafia, Tooba and Hamed back
to Kingston on July 18, supposedly to return some belongings
and update them on the investigation. While they were inside
the station, cops in the parking garage bugged their
minivan. Before sending them home, officers also
took the family on a tour of the locks—telling them,
falsely, that a camera had been found nearby and
detectives were poring through the footage. When
the trio climbed back in the van, police were eavesdropping. “They’re lying,” Shafia said, in Dari. “If
there was a camera they’d access it in a minute.”
Tooba agreed. “There was no camera over there,”
she said. “I looked around, there wasn’t any. If, God
forbid, God forbid, there was one in that little room,
all three of us would have been recorded.”
Hamed was driving, the engine humming in the
background. “That night there was no electricity
there, everywhere was pitch darkness,” Shafia said.
“You remember, Tooba?”
“Yes,” she answered.
At one point, Hamed actually warned his parents
that police “can fasten something to record your
voice.” They kept talking anyway. “To hell with them
‘To hell with them
and their boyfriends,’
Shafia is heard to say
on a wiretap. ‘Filthy
and rotten children.’
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
and their boyfriends,” Shafia said. “Filthy and rotten children.”
Over the next three days, police would record
Mohammad Shafia cursing his dead daughters and
basking in their demise. He was a good father, a
“liberal” who “took on drudgery for them.” And
yet they “betrayed” him, “undressed themselves
in front of boys” and acted like “whores.” “If we
remain alive one night or one year, we have no tension in our hearts, [thinking that] our daughter is
in the arms of this or that boy, in the arms of this
or that man,” Shafia railed, during another ride in
the van. “God curse their graduation! Curse of God
on both of them, on their kind. God’s curse on them
for a generation! May the devil s--t on their graves!”
His primary complaint, repeated over and over,
was that Zainab defied tradition. If she wanted to
get married, they would have found her a proper
khwastgar (suitor). “You and I both were trying to
find a good person to give her away to,” he told his
wife. “We weren’t going to keep her for ourselves!
That wouldn’t have been an appropriate thing.”
During another conversation, on July 20, Tooba
agreed that Zainab “was already done,” but wished
the “two others” (Sahar and Geeti) were not. “No
Tooba, they messed up,” Shafia said. “There was no
other way . . . They were treacherous. They betrayed
both themselves and us—like this woman standing
on the side of the road, and if you stop the car, she
would go with you anywhere. For the love of God,
Tooba, damnation on this life of ours, on these years
of life that we lead! When I tell you to be patient,
you tell me that it is hard. It isn’t harder than watching them every hour with boyfriends. For this reason, whenever I see those pictures, I am consoled.
I say to myself: ‘You did well. Would they come back
to life a hundred times, for you to do the same
again.’ That is how hurt I am.”
Police had heard enough. The next afternoon,
July 21, officers arrived at the Shafia residence with
a search warrant—and child welfare workers. For
their own safety, “A,” “B” and “C” were removed
from the home and placed in protective care.
Amid the commotion, detectives made sure to
hand Hamed a copy of the warrant, which listed
all their names and the exact offence under investigation: four counts of first-degree murder. “We
wanted him to read it,” Dempster explained. “We
wanted to hear what they had to say to each other
when presented with the fact that we believed they
had committed the murder of their family members.” Again, the tactic worked.
“My conscience, my God, my religion, my creed
aren’t shameful,” Shafia told the others, back inside
the van. “Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows,
nothing is more dear to me than my honour. Let’s
leave our destiny to God and may God never make
me, you or your mother honourless.”
“There is,” he said later, “no value of life without honour.”
Detectives spent hours inside the house, cataloguing and seizing potential pieces of evidence.
Phone bills. Passports. A pink photo album with
Disney characters on the cover. Rona’s diary. The
laptop. Hamed’s black suitcase, still packed with
the pictures of Sahar that he took to Dubai to show
his dad. In Hamed’s bedroom, police also found
a handwritten essay—“Importance of Traditions
and Customs”—penned for a recent school assignment. “Traditions and customs are to be followed
till the end of ones life,” he wrote, the mistakes
marked by a teacher’s pen. “It doesn’t matter at
all weather your close to the community following the specific traditions or living millions of miles
away. Traditions and customs of a person is like
his identity and what makes him special.”
When police left, the Shafias were allowed back
inside. What had been a family of 10, then a fam-
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
ily of six, was down to three. “Oh God, what kind
of disasters have you brought over me,” Tooba
said, walking through the house. “Oh God.”
The wiretaps were still rolling at 2:56 a.m., when
Hamed’s cellphone rang. On the other end of the
line was his little brother. “Look, Hamed, you are
100 per cent caught,” he said.
Police interviewed both “B” and his sister, “A,”
and made it clear that their mom, dad and brother
were responsible for what happened to Rona,
Zainab, Sahar and Geeti. “I don’t know what’s
going to happen,” Hamed told his brother. “I will
tell you this in advance: don’t be shocked when
you hear anything.”
Tooba spoke to all three of the children that
morning. She told “C,” the youngest, not to cry.
She asked “B” for more details about his chat with
police. “Are they saying that they have 100 per
cent proof or just suspicion?” she asked. And she Cornered: During interrogation, investigators
trapped the killers in their bizarre lies
told “A” that “if God wills, everything will be fixed.”
Loyal till the end, “A” had another strategy.
“They come into my dreams, but the following
“You should get a lawyer and keep saying: ‘No, morning I forget,” she replied. “I don’t know what
we didn’t do it.’ ”
they said.”
Six hours later, they were in handcuffs.
Shafia and Hamed were riding in the back of a
different car, also bound for Kingston. “Don’t
worry, my son.”
CHAPTER 8
“I’m not worrying,” Hamed answered. “Only
about my mother.”
“It’s okay, my son.” Shafia urged his boy to drink
some water. “We haven’t done anything wrong,”
he said. “They did it themselves.”
Among the officers waiting at police headquar“Do you hear their voices?” the police officer ters was Insp. Shahin Mehdizadeh, a Farsi-speakasked, sitting beside Tooba in the back of the car. ing Mountie based in British Columbia. A veteran
“Do they come to you in your dreams? How many of major crime investigations, he was parachuted
times do you hear their voices?”
in for the sole purpose of interviewing husband
“A hundred times in every moment,” Tooba sobbed. and wife in their native tongue. But before enter“Aren’t they telling you: ‘Mommy, we were ing one of the interrogation rooms, he watched
innocent’?”
Tooba on the monitor, her tear-soaked face burMACLEAN’S EBOOK EDITION
CP; CROWN EXHIBIT
SHIFTING STORIES,
TWISTING LIES
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
ied in the pages of the Disney family photo album.
“I want my children,” she wailed. “I haven’t killed
and I don’t want to talk.”
By then, all three suspects had been separated.
No more chances to talk things over. No more time
to plot the next lie. Investigators would grill them
for hours, cornering them with the overwhelming
evidence and urging them to come clean.
One would crack (sort of). The other two would
stick to the story. And then one of them would
invent a completely new version of events, hoping to save all three.
“We know what has happened now,” Mehdizadeh told Tooba, his words subtitled for the jury,
like a foreign film. “But we want to know why.
Why have four lives been lost?”
Why was Hamed’s cellphone in Kingston on
June 27, while the rest of the family was still in
Niagara Falls? Why did Shafia ask your brother to
help him kill Zainab? Why did police find pieces
of a Lexus headlight at the scene? Leaning in closer,
Mehdizadeh put his hand on Tooba’s shoulder.
“When you see the body of your daughters that
are cold and dry, is this something that we could
forget?” he asked. “Tell me the true story. Open
your heart. I know you want to do this because
this is the right thing. You are a good Muslim. You
want to do the right thing.”
Hour after hour, question after question, Tooba
cried and denied and insisted that no mother
could commit such an act. But the more Mehdizadeh suggested that her son was a killer, the more
her story shifted. “I request you one thing,” she
finally said. “Never tell my husband that I have
said this.”
She went on to explain that Shafia was “alone”
with the Nissan at the water’s edge, and that she
and Hamed were across the road with the Lexus.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, they heard a splash.
“Hamed and I ran screaming,” she recalled.
“Hamed went into the water to save them?”
Mehdizadeh asked.
“Into the water? No. He couldn’t go into the
water.”
“Why?”
“He couldn’t go. We ran and I fell down.”
Tooba said she fainted, and the next thing she
knew they were back at the motel.
“These four women are just sitting and looking
at each other to go to their graves?” he asked. “It
is not possible, madam. If you were in the car, you
would come out. You would have opened the door
and come out.”
He squeezed Tooba’s hands. He offered to get
on his knees and kiss her feet. He told her, over
and over, that she needed to act like a real mother.
But Tooba would say no more, too tired and confused and impatient to keep talking. “In my view,
you are a kind of mother with a heart like a rock,”
Mehdizadeh said, his tone shifting. “None of you,
none of you have an atom-size discomfort that
your children have died.”
“I have,” she said. “Believe me, I have.”
“Madam, if you had, you would have told the
truth. You would have wanted to help us. You
would have wanted to respect your daughters.”
“I have,” Tooba said. “These are my children.”
“Don’t say ‘my children.’ When you say ‘my
children’ my heart gets a little pressured. Nobody
wants to see his children get drowned like this and
not tell anyone.”
In a nearby interview room, Hamed was slouched
in his own wooden chair, flipping through photos
of the dead. He had asked—repeatedly—to see
them. “They deserve to know the truth,” said Sgt.
Mike Boyles, sitting across the table.
“I seriously don’t know,” Hamed said, never
lifting his head.
Judged: The honour killing trial drew attention from across Canada and around the world
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
“Look at me,” the sergeant said, swiping away
the pictures. “Your father shouldn’t have got you
involved in this, or your mother.”
Hamed reached for the photos again, but this
time Boyles refused to hand them over. “Why
should you get to look at them if you can’t look
at me and tell the truth?”
Like Mehdizadeh, Boyles told Hamed exactly
what the police had. The headlight. The wiretaps.
Zainab’s misbehaviour. “In my opinion, you’re a
victim of circumstance, to some degree,” he said.
“I’m not going to sit here and tell you your culture is wrong or our traditions [are] wrong. What
I’m here to tell you is what you did in Canada is
illegal, and now you have to own up to it.”
Even after Boyles told Hamed that his mom
placed all three of them at the crime scene, he
continued to insist it was all an accident.
“You guys aren’t hit men,” the sergeant said. “You
guys don’t know how to cover your tracks properly.
You don’t know how to get away with things.”
Hamed asked to go back to his cell.
Shafia spent the night in a different cell, his first
of many, before officers took him to the interview
room. Dressed in the same slacks and sandals from
the day before, he said his arrest was a “violation
of his right,” that his life was “ruined,” and that
the person who really killed his family “should be
found” and punished. “They were pure and sinless kids,” he said. “They were our children.”
Mehdizadeh did not mince words. “I want to
tell you that we are certain that you, your wife,
and Hamed had involvement in the killing of
them,” he said. “You are a wise man. I will prove
to you that you had planned this.”
Shafia denied everything. “I wish God would
have taken my life and spared their lives,” he said.
“I would have been ready.” He wouldn’t even admit
that Rona was his wife—despite the wedding photo
in the inspector’s hand. “It was her birthday or
something,” Shafia said. “This is not marriage.”
Getting nowhere, Mehdizadeh eventually stood
up to leave. “A small Nissan car became their
grave,” he said, glaring down at his suspect. “Whoever does this, he is a criminal, he is a person who
in fact doesn’t have a heart.”
“You are absolutely right,” Shafia answered. “He
is the worst, dishonourable person in the world.”
Remember those words, Mehdizadeh told him.
“You don’t have even a little honour,” he said,
walking out the door. “The honour of your family is in the hands of your women.”
Four months later, as police continued to investigate, an envelope arrived at headquarters. The
Shafia case, twisted enough already, was about to
take another astonishing turn.
The package was from Moosa Hadi, a Queen’s
University student originally from Afghanistan.
Hired as a translator for defence lawyers, he was
directing his own private investigation on the side.
Convinced that the cops were dead wrong, he wanted
the police to listen to a jailhouse interview he had
conducted with Hamed just a few days earlier.
In the recording, Hamed revealed much more
than he did to Sgt. Boyles. He told Hadi that both
cars did arrive at the motel, and that Zainab and
the others were inside the Nissan, itching to buy
some phone cards. Hamed advised against it, he
said, but agreed to follow them in the Lexus just
to make sure they made it back from the gas station. “They are scared at night,” he explained.
The pumps were closed, and while looking for
a place to turn around, he said he accidentally
rear-ended the Nissan. “I was upset, I called them
to come back,” Hamed went on. “They said: ‘Okay,
we’ll make a turn.’ ” While picking up the broken
pieces of headlight, he heard the splash.
So Hamed did what any good brother would:
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
Gerard Laarhuis
Peter Kemp
Crown attorney
Shafia’s defence lawyer
‘This is a good day for
Canadian justice. This verdict
sends a very clear message.’
‘A picture tells a thousand
words. [Sahar] looks
quite happy and content.’
designed to be Canada’s Parliament, back when
Kingston was envisioned as the capital city. The
dome tower on the roof was added in 1874 (after
a fire) and the outdoor fountain, three tiers, came
in 1903.
A century later, the Shafia murder trial required
another round of specialized upgrades. A secondfloor courtroom, the biggest, was rewired to include
flat-screen televisions and a pair of rectangular,
CHAPTER 9
soundproof booths reserved for interpreters. Every
word of the trial—Dari, Farsi, English, French or
Spanish—was translated, real-time, via headphones.
On most days, the gallery was so full that there
weren’t enough sets to go around.
The key players, of course, were never without:
Opened in 1858, the Frontenac County Court- the judge, the jury, the lawyers, and the three peohouse has undergone its share of changes over the ple sitting inside the bulletproof prisoners’ box,
decades. Crafted from limestone, with six giant ankles shackled. Hamed was always in the middle,
pillars guarding the front door, it was originally his father to his right, his mother to his left.
ARROGANT RIGHT
TO THE END
REUTERS; LARS HAGBERG/MONTREAL GAZETTE; QMI AGENCY
he beeped his horn, dangled a rope in the water,
and left for Montreal to stage a cover-up accident.
“I was scared,” he said. Scared because the police
might blame him for allowing his sister to drive
without a licence. “I decided with myself not to
say that I was with them,” he said. “I didn’t know
what to say to my mom and dad.”
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
Crown attorney Laurie Lacelle delivered her
opening address on Oct. 20, 2011, two days before
what should have been Sahar’s 20th birthday.
With the girls’ photos on the screens, she told the
jury (seven women and five men) that what happened at the locks was a “planned and premeditated” massacre motivated by a father’s tarnished
honour, and carried out with the full co-operation
of his preferred wife and like-minded son.
There is a presumption of innocence in this country, regardless of the crime. It is up to prosecutors
to prove guilt, not the other way around, and the
Shafia case, despite the attention, was no exception. Father, mother and brother were granted the
fairest of trials, and through it all, the law viewed
them the same as their dead relatives: innocent.
Yet what made this trial so fascinating—and at
times, sadly comical—was that the accused actually
believed it. Or at least believed that the jury might
believe it. Whether it was arrogance or stupidity or
another show of honour, the trio sat in their aquarium of a prisoners’ box, oblivious to the words being
pumped into their headphones.
Every day, the gravity of the evidence became
more apparent. Teachers, social workers and police
testified about the abuse and dysfunction inside
the Shafia home, and the calls for help that, in
hindsight, were grossly underestimated. Rob Etherington told the jury about his eureka moment
with the headlight pieces. Brent White, the very
first officer on the scene, recalled how instantly
strange the “accident” seemed. “I was thinking:
this is pretty difficult to get in this spot. It would
have to be driven there on purpose.”
When Ricardo Sanchez took the stand, he was
asked to read some of the text messages he sent
to Sahar in the days before she died. “The only
thing that I would wish in this world is to have you
every day of my life,” he said, the paper shaking
in his hands. “Every time I close my eyes I only
want to see you.”
Rarely did a day pass without the girls’ pictures
being flashed on the monitors. Sahar applying her
makeup. Zainab and her hoop earrings. Geeti with
the puppy.
Lacelle and her co-prosecutor, Gerard Laarhuis,
called 50 witnesses over six weeks. Defence lawyers
challenged barely any of it, most of their crossexaminations finished within minutes. The closest
thing to a heated exchange occurred with Mehdizadeh on the witness stand, talking about his interrogation of Tooba. Her lawyer, David Crowe, suggested that the inspector, an Iranian, should have
known that an Afghan woman—for cultural reasons—would be uncomfortable sitting alone with
a strange man.
“We don’t live in a perfect world,” Mehdizadeh
said. “The background is irrelevant when you are
investigating a homicide.”
Two of the Crown’s most important witnesses
were experts in two very different subjects: collision reconstruction, and patriarchy in Mideast cultures. The how, and the why.
Const. Chris Prent, guided by scrapes and
scratches, offered his opinion on the Nissan’s final
moments. He noted that the airbags did not deploy,
suggesting the car was travelling at a “snail’s pace”
and that nobody slammed on the brakes. Instead,
he said, the driver’s side of the Sentra got hung up
on a small set of wooden stairs beside the lock door,
leaving the front tires hanging over the edge.
The Nissan’s back bumper was also dented and
gouged, and the “S” and “E” were missing from
the SENTRA nameplate. According to his analysis,
the damage was a perfect match with similar marks
found on the front left end of the Lexus. Even more
damning, the bottom of the Sentra contained two
long scratches—more proof of his conclusion. “In
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
my opinion,” he said, “the Lexus was used to push
the Nissan over the ledge into the water.”
Shahrzad Mojab did not refer to any of the specific evidence, dents or otherwise. And she was not
asked for her thoughts on the three suspects watching her testify. Instead, the University of Toronto
professor provided the jury with a disturbing history lesson on the one word at the heart of the case.
“What masquerades as honour is really a man’s
need to control a woman’s sexuality,” she said.
In certain patriarchal cultures (and not just
Muslim cultures, she stressed), a family’s fragile
reputation literally lives or
dies on the conduct of its
females. The tiniest infraction—talking to a man, going
out alone, refusing an arranged
marriage—carries massive consequences. “It reflects on who
is in power in the household,”
she said. “If a man cannot control his own household, which is represented by
the behaviour of the female members, it means
he cannot be trusted for any other public
matters.”
There is only one way, she said, to erase that
shame: bloodshed. “Within the community,” Mojab
said, “it is an expected act.”
angle of the prosecution’s case. During interrogation he lied about his true relationship with Rona
because he was worried about her immigration
file. His daughters (who called him “daddy”) were
allowed to fall in love, as long as they didn’t hide
the relationship. He thought Ammar Wahid was
a disgraceful drunk, but if that’s the man Zainab
wanted, fine. “Why did they have to escape?” the
58-year-old asked. “We were not preventing them
from doing things.”
More than once, as an interpreter finished translating his answer, Shafia’s eyes glanced at the jury
to gauge their reaction.
In what might have been the
trial’s most outrageous moment,
Shafia’s lawyer, Peter Kemp,
asked him to explain what he
really meant when he urged
the devil to “s--t on their graves.”
Because, apparently, phrases
like that can mean so many different things.
“To me, it means the devil would go out and
check with them in their graves,” Shafia explained,
his face straight. “If they have done a good thing,
it would be good. If they did bad, it will be up to
God what to do.”
By the time Lacelle finished her cross-examination, Shafia had admitted that his daughters were
“whores,” that they did deserve to die—but that
he didn’t murder them.
“You believe their actions brought about their
rightful death,” Lacelle said.
“Yes,” Shafia answered.
“You believed your daughters deserved to die
for their treachery.”
“That is up to God what he did,” he said.
Shafia spent two days on the stand. His wife was
there for six. It felt like 60. Even the simplest ques-
‘You believe their
actions brought
about their rightful
death,’ Lacelle said.
‘Yes,’ Shafia answered.
What is not expected (at least in most murder
trials) is for accused killers to testify. Again, the
onus of proof rests with the state, and a suspect
who takes the stand exposes himself to cross-examination. Most criminals are smart enough not to
take that risk.
Not Mohammad Shafia. Or Tooba Yahya. Both
of them placed their hands on the Quran and
swore to Allah to tell the truth.
Shafia had an innocent explanation for every
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
tions—What did you do when Sahar tried to kill
herself ? How long did you stop at that McDonald’s? What day were the funerals?—triggered a
rambling response about Farsi expressions or
motherly love or how sick and forgetful she was
that night.
But the 42-year-old did want the jury to know
the truth: that she was a liar. A very, very big one.
But not anymore.
All those “lies” she blurted out—especially the
one about being at the locks with her husband
and son when half the family drowned—were the
words of a desperate woman trying to escape the
“clutches” of a police interrogator and save Hamed
from “torture.”
Laarhuis, the other prosecutor, asked her why
she waited in the Nissan, knowing full well that
everyone was about to die.
“We were a very sincere and collected family,”
she said, her voice rising. “Don’t ever tell me that
I killed my children. Never!”
At one point, Laarhuis asked about Hamed’s
“confession” to Moosa Hadi, the story about the
gas station and the dangling rope. Tooba’s response
was subtle but stunning. “Till now, I am upset
with Hamed and my heart is bleeding. He should
have told me. He should have come and told us
everything clearly.”
Suddenly, for the first time since the trial began,
the defence strategy was clear: blame Hamed. Not
for quadruple murder, but for failing to tell anyone, including his grieving parents, that he witnessed the “accident.”
In the end, Hamed did not testify, hoping to
shield his shaky alibi from cross-examination.
Ridiculous or not, that was their story.
But before the defence rested, the jury did hear
from the other Shafia son—the one who isn’t in
jail. Mom and dad sobbed at first sight, their little
boy—15 when social services took him away—all
grown up. “B” waved and smiled, and then left
no doubt about where his loyalty lay. “When I
read the newspapers, it’s like I don’t even know
these people,” he said. “They have set up a completely different personality. All that isn’t true.”
According to “B,” the kids lived a charmed and
spoiled existence. If anything, they took advantage of their parents, making up stories about
problems at home so teachers would “let us get
away with stuff.” Geeti didn’t want to be placed
in foster care; she was just saying that for “attention and popularity.” Sahar was never suicidal; it
was all part of a plan to get “special treatment.”
And Zainab was out of control, stealing the car
keys all the time.
“B” also insisted that he never spied on his sisters. He never confronted Sahar and her boyfriend in a restaurant. And it might have been
him, not Hamed, who typed “where to commit
a murder” into Google. “At the time, I was suicidal,” he explained. “I wasn’t familiar with the
word suicide or suicidal, and I thought murder
was the same thing.”
When “B” finished his testimony, he asked Justice Robert Maranger if he could hug his parents
goodbye. The judge declined, saying it wasn’t the
proper time or place.
In the final days of the trial, “B” returned to
court to watch from the gallery. “A” came with
him, rushing toward the prisoners’ box and pressing her lips against the glass.
Peter Kemp, Shafia’s lawyer, was the first to
give his closing address. He asked the jury to consider who his client is. A wealthy entrepreneur
who travelled the world. A doting father who “lived
for his family.” Rona, he said, was “a well-dressed,
well taken care of woman.” He showed the court
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
yet another photo of Sahar. “A picture tells a thousand words,” he said. “She looks quite happy and
content with her life.”
David Crowe, Tooba’s lawyer, said his client lived
for one thing: to be a mother. “Her life has been
devoted to protecting and raising her children,”
he said. “And she finds herself in a position in
which she can do neither.” The wiretaps are “disturbing,” he admitted, but not incriminating. “At
no point in the intercepts do they say: ‘We have
regained our honour by drowning them.’ ”
Patrick McCann, Hamed’s lawyer, said his client’s
version of events is the only one that makes sense.
Hamed followed the girls (for their own safety, of
course) and accidentally rear-ended the Nissan near
the locks. And while picking up the shattered headlight pieces, he heard the car go in. “And then he
made a terrible, terrible decision,” McCann said.
“He was 18 at the time. He was a kid. He is guilty
of being stupid and morally blameworthy.”
Laurie Lacelle spoke to the jury for six hours,
reading, verbatim, from a binder on the podium.
There were no theatrics. No ego. Her tone of voice,
calm and precise, never wavered. She could not
have been more effective. “They shared a bond
of love for one another,” she said, listing the dead.
“And they shared another bond: the desperate
desire to escape the Shafia household.”
The physical evidence alone, she said, was enough
to convict. “Once you accept that what happened
at the edge of the locks was intentional, you must
conclude it was murder,” Lacelle said. “There can
be no other reason for someone to deliberately
push the Nissan into the canal.”
It is also no coincidence that all four just happened to be in the Sentra as it cruised into Kingston. Zainab, the whore who ran away. Sahar, the
liar in the arms of boys. Geeti, the uncontrollable.
Rona, easily disposable.
“[A] was the only teenaged girl in the family
who was spared, and the evidence is pretty clear
why,” she said. “Unlike her sisters, she followed
the rules. She did well in school, she didn’t have
boyfriends, and she didn’t upset her father with
her dress. The sisters knew that [A] could not be
trusted with their secrets.”
“B” was not in the car, either. “The rules, as you’ve
heard, are different for boys,” Lacelle said. “They
couldn’t become whores.”
Father was the ringleader, demanding it be done.
Son took care of the logistics, scouting out locations.
And mother kept it all a secret, ensuring that nobody
saw it coming. “Shafia, Tooba and Hamed decided
there was a diseased limb on their family tree,”
Lacelle said. “And their solution was to remove the
diseased limb in its entirety, and prune the tree back
to the good wood.”
Behind closed doors, the jury was left to decide
which story to believe.
CHAPTER 10
JUSTICE DONE, BUT
SO MUCH WAS LOST
As soon as he heard it, Hamed covered his face
with both hands. Tooba rubbed his back, as a good
mother would. Shafia stood stone-faced, looking
at the jury.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
It took 15 hours—as long as that road trip from
Grand-Remous to Niagara Falls—for the jurors to
reach their verdict.
Looking out at the packed courtroom, Justice
Perp walk: ‘This is unjust,’ said Shafia after hearing
the guilty verdict
Maranger asked the newly convicted if they had
anything to say.
“Bali,” Shafia said, the Dari word for yes. “We’re
not criminals. We are not murderers. And this
is unjust.”
“Your honour, this is not just,” his wife said next,
without her customary tears. “I’m not a murderer.
I am a mother.”
Hamed, who didn’t say a single word during the
trial, responded in English. “Sir,” he said loudly.
“I did not drown my sisters anywhere.”
First-degree murder carries an automatic sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for
25 years. Taking into account time already served,
Shafia will be in his early 80s by the time he’s eligible for release. His wife will be 64. His son, now
21, will be middle-aged. And even if the parole
board does find a reason to set them free, it will
be straight to a waiting airplane for deportation.
Though welcomed into Canada, the Shafias never
did become citizens.
“It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous,
more despicable, more honourless crime,” Justice
Maranger told them. “The apparent reasons
behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders
was that the four completely innocent victims
offended your twisted notion of honour—a notion
of honour that is founded on the domination and
control of women, a sick notion of honour that
has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”
Outside the courthouse, a crowd of reporters
and curious citizens huddled around an iron fence,
watching as the handcuffed trio was led to a waiting police van one last time. “Wrong,” Shafia said,
looking at the cameras. “Wrong.” His wife and
son, flanked by officers, were silent.
“This is a good day for Canadian justice,” said
Laarhuis, standing beside his co-prosecutor,
Lacelle. “This verdict sends a very clear message
about our Canadian values and the core principles of a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy, and even visitors to Canada enjoy.”
It went largely unnoticed in the frenzy, but
before court adjourned, Laarhuis told the judge
there would be no victim-impact statements. At
the end of most criminal trials—especially murder
trials—relatives are given a chance to tell their
story, to explain just how unspeakable their loss
has been. For Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti,
nobody came forward to confront their killers.
Not a brother. Not a sister. Nobody.
In life, and in death, they had no voice. No one
to protect them. No one to save them. No one
who cares even enough to fix Geeti’s headstone.
Nearly three years after she was buried, it is still
engraved with Sahar’s birthday, not hers.
THE SHAFIA TRIAL
National
THE EVIDENCE
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The police used wiretaps, traced cell phones
and conducted lengthy interrogations.
Here are some of the key elements used to
bring the killers to justice.
FEBRUARY 13, 2012
THE EVIDENCE
VIDEO
TOOBA’S INTERROGATION
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‘I haven’t killed and I don’t want to talk,’ she sobbed. But after hours of
intense questioning, a mother finally admits the truth: she was there.
THE EVIDENCE
VIDEO
HAMED’S INTERROGATION
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Cornered by the evidence, the 18-year-old demanded to see the
photographs of his dead sisters. Yet even then, he would not confess.
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VIDEO
MOHAMMAD’S INTERROGATION
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Accused of drowning three daughters and his first wife, a stubborn father
continues to insist it was an accident. ‘They were pure and sinless kids.’
THE EVIDENCE
VIDEO
THE LOCKS AND MOTEL
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The Kingston police revisit the murder scene, and retrace the path to the
motel where two rooms were booked for only six family members
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AUDIO
HAMED’S 911 CALL
To explain the damage to his family’s Lexus SUV, Hamed drove to
Montreal, called 911 and claimed he’d been in a single-vehicle accident
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Click here to listen to the 911 call
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE CRIME SCENE
These police photos detail the Kingston Mills Locks, the Nissan being
pulled from the water, and incriminating damage to the family Lexus
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An aerial view of the Kingston locks, where the submerged car was found
1/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE CRIME SCENE
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The Nissan Sentra is pulled from the locks after the gruesome discovery
2/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE CRIME SCENE
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Damage to the rear of the Nissan reveals the car was pushed into the locks
3/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE CRIME SCENE
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The Sentra was bought by Mohammad Shafia just prior to the family trip for $5,000
4/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE CRIME SCENE
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Gouges on the edge of the lock suggest the front-wheel-drive car got hung up
5/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE CRIME SCENE
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Pieces of glass from a car’s light provided critical clues for investigators
6/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE CRIME SCENE
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Damage to the Shafia Lexus linked it to the murder scene
7/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE CRIME SCENE
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Hamad drove back to Montreal, where he staged an accident in a parking lot
8/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE CRIME SCENE
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The police concluded that damage to the Lexus was from pushing the Nissan into the locks
9/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA HOUSE
The family living room, TV room and one of the girl’s bedrooms—plus,
Hamed’s disturbing essay, and a loving note from Geeti to Sahar
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‘I hope we’ll never be separated,’ Geeti wrote to her sister Sahar
1/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA HOUSE
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Documents found in the search of the Shafia house
2/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA HOUSE
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The family living room of the Shafia house in Saint-Leonard
3/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA HOUSE
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The photo album the police would later show to Tooba during her interrogation
4/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA HOUSE
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Family photos collected by the police from the Shafia house
5/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA HOUSE
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The spartan living quarters in the house rented by the Shafia clan
6/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA HOUSE
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A receipt from the motel where Mohammad booked rooms the night of the murders
7/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA HOUSE
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A bedroom in the Shafia house, where all 10 family members lived
8/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA HOUSE
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Hamed’s school essay on the ‘importance of traditions and customs’
9/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA FAMILY
Entered into evidence were photos Zainab and Sahar snapped
of themselves—alone, together and with their boyfriends
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Rona Amir Mohammad
1/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA FAMILY
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Sahar Shafia
2/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA FAMILY
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Sahar and boyfriend Ricardo Sanchez
3/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA FAMILY
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Sahar Shafia
4/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA FAMILY
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Zainab Shafia and boyfriend Ammar Wahid
5/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA FAMILY
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Rona at an undated event
6/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA FAMILY
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Sisters Sahar and Zainab
7/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA FAMILY
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Ricardo Sanchez
8/9
THE EVIDENCE
PHOTOS
THE SHAFIA FAMILY
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Zainab Shafia
9/9
THE EVIDENCE
TRANSCRIPTS
RONA’S DIARY
‘I wanted to put this episode, this bitter story of my life, on paper,’
writes his first wife, living in misery and servitude in the house of Shafia
Journal: Rona Amir Mohammad chronicled her childhood, betrothal and the Shafia family’s journey from
Afghanistan to Canada. ‘After getting married, my lot in life began a downward sprial, right up to today’
April 8, 2008
In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Diary of Rona Amir
My name is Rona, daughter of Amir Mohammad,
born on 3rd Assad 1339 solar anno hejira in Deh
Afghanan, Kabul. I do not remember my early
childhood, but when they put me to school at the
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DARI TO ENGLISH TRANSLATION
[square brackets are translator’s explanatory notes]
THE EVIDENCE
age of five I kept crying. They had placed me beside
a boy at school, and I was crying and protesting
that I didn’t want to sit beside a boy. My brother,
Noor, who was a teacœher at Istiqlal School came
to me and said, “It doesn’t matter, the boy is like
a brother to you, don’t cry”, but I kept crying.
I had been enrolled in Istiqlal School which was
located at Malik Asghar intersection. I attended
this school up to grade 4. When I was in fourth
grade, the French sponsors of the school planned
to tear down the old school building and build a
brand new one in its place, so the students had to
go to school at Shahr-e-Nao, behind Zaynab Cinema. I completed grade 6 at this location. In grade
7, I entered Malalai School because I was now older
and there were few girls at Istiqlal School. There
were many more subjects to study in grade 7, and
I failed the math exam. I studied hard with my
brother Haji during the three months’ winter
recess and took the math exam again and passed.
I was very happy at Malalai School because I had
a lot of girl friends, and fortunately I came from
a liberal-minded family so there were few restrictions imposed on me. Sometimes after school I
used to go watch basketball matches between different schools and there was no objection from
my family.
On my part, I kept their trust in me [and did
not do any thing offensive], but then, I was a very
shy and timid girl. The foreign language taught
at Malalai School was French, which I liked very
much and got three commendation certificates
[for it] from the school.
So life passed like this; home and school. I was
not allowed to go to the family home. [Sic, despite
the fact that this sentence seems out of place here.]
My father was a retired army colonel who had
graduated from the Military Academy and had
served long years in the armed forces. He had
studied at the Military Academy at the same time
as Zahir Khan [King of Afghanistan, 1933-1973]
and Daoud Khan [Cousin of the King, prime minster 1953-1963 and president of the republic, 197378 ]. We were [nine siblings, all told]; three sisters
and two brothers from one wife [of my father’s]
and three sisters and one brother from another
wife. My mother was my father’s second wife.
We were a middle class family. I had just finished
11th grade when my brother Noor married. Shirin Jan, who was a distant relative on my father’s
side, had come to my brother’s wedding reception and saw me sitting there, quiet and subdued.
She liked me and asked for my hand in marriage
for her son from her first husband. After visiting
our house several times [according to custom when
a young girl’s hand is being asked for marriage. 6
The “ritual” undertaken by the groom’s family
for asking a girl’s hand in marriage] she invited
all of us to her house so that her son could have a
good look at me. After our visit her son announced
his consent, so [Shirin Jan’s family] stepped up
the khwastgari [The “ritual” undertaken by groom’s
family for asking a girl’s hand in marriage]. I knew
nothing about such things, so when my elder
brother came to me to ask me whether I accepted
the union, I said “Give me away in marriage if he
is a good man; don’t if he is not.” They asked
around and found out that [the suitor] was a good
man but not educated, since due to family problems he had not been able to complete his
education.
In short, we became engaged. Some problems
came up during the betrothal celebrations which
resulted in hurt feelings, but they were dealt with
and a grand celebration was held at the Intercontinental Hotel. After two years our wedding
also took place at this hotel. After getting married, my lot in life began a downward spiral, right
THE EVIDENCE
up to today that I am writing these memoirs.
My husband told me that I should go and see a
doctor because I wasn’t getting pregnant. I went
to see [Dr.] Karima Rashidi. She gave me some
injections and said “You will conceive, it is too
soon [to get worried].” After six months and no
positive result, I went to see [Dr.] Tireena who at
that time was [a] very renowned [gynecologist].
She also told me that I was going to conceive and
that there was nothing to worry about. In short,
I spent some six, seven years like this but could
not get to bear a child. Finally, my husband started
picking on me. He wouldn’t allow me to go visit
my mother, and at home he would find fault with
my cooking and serving meals, and he would find
excuses to harass me.
[It reached a point where] I had to say “Go and
take another wife, what can I do?”
He twice took me to India [for treatment] and
[he used to say] “I will take a second wife [but]
you also I will have treated.” Finally, Aziz promised to find a [second] wife for him and I knew
nothing about it. [Some time later] Aziz’s wife
came to visit us and she saw that [we had] a large
house but no children, so she gave her [own] sister in marriage to my husband. It was thus that
he married a second time and I was visited with a
new catastrophe. [My husband’s second wife] conceived after three months and my husband promised her that he would have their child born in
India, and [also promised me] at the same time
that he would see to my treatment. In short, his
first child was born in India and was christened
Sadaf as a first name and Zainab as a second name,
and I too was taken for treatment [to India], but
the [Indian] doctor told me that I had to have surgery in order for conceptive treatment to succeed.
Shafie did not allow this because we only had 15
days left and [cited the pretext] that there were
no [good] doctors in Kabul, and what if the [surgical] wound were to become infected? So we came
back to Kabul and when Sadaf was a year old [her
mother] became pregnant again and my husband’s
treatment of me, which was not bad, began to
deteriorate and his [second] wife [schemed] to
gradually separate me from my husband. Wherever my husband went and whatever he brought
home, he treated both of us equally, but his [second]
wife didn’t like this and after their son Hamed was
born happiness left me.Until Hamed was eight
months old I did the chores at home for a week
and then it was [my co-wife]’s turn to do the household chores for a week.
One day my husband had guests. They played
cards throughout the whole night. When his guests
left, I told [my co-wife] “Come to your son, I will
do the cleaning up”, but she said “[No], I will do
[the cleaning].” I was sitting on the roof of the
one-storey house above a solarium, and Hamed
was in my arms. There were about two hand-spans
of cement and the rest was of glass. I do not know
how it happened but I moved a little [and the next
thing I knew] Hamed and I had both fallen down
[onto the floor beneath]. It was a Saturday and
both of us were taken to the hospital. Hamed’s
leg and my head, arm and leg were badly hurt.
After a lot of treatment by Dr Anwar, Shafie’s
brother, both [Hamed and I] got well again through
the grace of God. I was [an adult] and could bear
the pain, but Hamed was very little and it was very
difficult for him until he got well again. He was
allergic to antibiotics, but through the grace of
God both of us recuperated. My husband, though,
treated me very badly after that and he used to
say time and again, “You dropped my son,” and
I used to reply “I didn’t do it on purpose, I was
hurt too”, but he used to say “I don’t care about
you, you hurt my son.” I suffered so much until
THE EVIDENCE
his son got well again that I could not even think
about my own condition. [My husband] did not
treat me and my family decently until Hamed was
well again. Hamed’s mother had conceived once
more and at the time of Hamed’s fall from the
roof she had Sahar, her third child, in her womb.
Sahar was born through the grace of God three
months after [the mishap]. When Sahar was 40
days old, her mother gave her to me [a custom in
some families with a barren and a fertile co-wife
married to the same husband, by which the fertile wife gives (or consents to give) her new-born
child for “in-family adoption” to the barren cowife for the latter to raise as her own in order for
her to feel somewhat mollified for her inability to
have children of her own] and said “She is yours
and you will have charge of her.” It was Tooba who
[initiated] this and I was very happy. Night and
day I worked hard and did not allow [Tooba] to
do any housework so that Sahar would not be discomforted. [Despite the “in-family adoption”
mentioned, the biological mother continues to
breast-feed the baby and perform basic mothering
duties which the co-wife cannot perform.] When
Sahar was four months old her mother said that
Shafie should stay three nights with her and one
night with me. Because she had given Sahar tome,
I agreed. Sahar was eight months old when the
civil war in Kabul intensified and we fled Afghanistan to Pakistan. At this time Tooba was once
again two-and-a-half months’ pregnant with
[redacted]. [Redacted], was born in Pakistan, then
came [redacted] and then Geeti. At first we were
living in Hayatabad [a community in Peshawar,
Pakistan] together with Anwar, [Shafie’s] brother,
then we moved to Defense Colony, Fauji section.
[A community in Peshawar so named because
mostly Pakistani army officers live and own houses
there. “Fauji” means “Army”.] When little Geeti
was four months old we went to Dubai. Throughout this period I helped Tooba a lot because I was
childless myself.
We exited Kabul on 18 August 1992
Throughout each of Tooba’s pregnancies I helped
her, four months before her giving birth and 40 days
after. From the seventh month [of her pregnancy] I
would tell her not to do any housework [but to leave
everything to me]. Every child of hers was born at
the end of her 10th month of gestation. I suffered
a lot while the children grew up in an environment
of displaced people, because if they hurt or burnt
themselves I would be answerable in any case. This
was because Tooba would be pregnant and would be
resting, and miserable me who was estranged [intimately] from my husband would always be busy with
the housework, and if one of the children hurt themselves it would be my father who would be cursed a
hundred times. [In Afghan culture, the harshest and
most hurtful non-obscene vituperation is to curse
someone’s father.]
We came to Dubai in April of 1996. We had left
Afghanistan in August of 1992. Once in Dubai,
[Tooba] didn’t conceive for five years, meaning
that she didn’t want to get pregnant again. It was
during this period that she shed all worries. She
separated Shafie from me for ever [in regard to
sleeping arrangements], she bought a lot of gold
[jewelry] [Buying and possessing gold and gold
jewelry is considered a woman’s investment and
guarantee of future financial security because her
gold and jewelry are considered her very own.],
she took driving courses, and she took away the
financial management and power [sic] of the
household from me. First she told Shafie to spend
three nights with her and one night with me. After
some time she said that [Shafie should spend] one
week with her and one night with me; then finally
THE EVIDENCE
she permanently separated him from me –but not
aggressively, through shouting and quarrelling,
but gently and smoothly, without putting herself
at risk of any censure. She put the [responsibility
for the arrangement] squarely on Shafie’s shoulders, and miserable me who wouldn’t question
Shafie in regard to anything swallowed everything
without a word, because I had no option.
Two o’clock in the morning, 5.6.2008
We were very happy for some time after we
arrived in Dubai because there was a change in
our lives. But [for me] this happiness was short
lived because Tooba, little by little, implemented
all the schemes she had and drove me [deeper]
into misery without allowing any blame or censure to attach to herself. One day Shafie said “I
want to buy gold [jewelry] for both of you.” He
told me, “Choose whether you want [gold] bangles or a set [a matching set of earrings, pendant].”
He asked the same of Tooba. I said I wanted a set
because I had bangles. [This was] because I had
had two sets [of gold] but Shafie [had taken them
away from me and] had sold them when we were
in India, because, [he said,] “Tooba keeps telling
me ‘Rona has a lot of gold and I have little’, so I
will sell all your gold and [later] I will buy you both
[the same thing and treat you both equally].” So
I gave him both my [gold] sets; one was a set he
had given me before he married Tooba, and it
consisted of 11 half-pounds [Most probably meaning gold coins, locally called “pounds” and “halfpounds”, strung together with a gold chain and
worn around the neck like a necklace without the
chain], and the other set was with a bangle and
earrings which he sold for around 55,000 [Indian
Rupees]. These he sold at a time when a dollar was
[the equivalent of] 30 Afghanis. When Sadaf was
born he took me to a jewelry shop and I chose a
set which did not include a bangle and a ring
because I liked it. [The same set] cost 3,200 dirhams in 1997. I said “Buy me a chilla [A wedding
ring or a ring signifying matrimony]” because he
had sold my chilla too. In response he told me
“That is enough now, some other time,” and he
deceived me. I am in Canada now that I am writing this episode, and a long time has passed since
then, but because it pained me a great deal I wanted
to put this episode, this bitter story of my life, on
paper. Anyway, let me continue my story.
The next day he took Tooba out to buy her gold
[jewelry]. Tooba told him “Buy me bangles because
here [in Dubai] there is not much going-and-coming and no weddings [to attend], so I don’t want
to buy a set.” So Shafie bought her six bangles, the
[total] weight of which was equal to my gold set.
She showed me a bangle and said “This one Shafie
bought for me.” I asked her, “What is the weight
[of the bangle]?” She said, “It weighs 20 grams”
but it really was something like 50 grams because
it was as thick as two fingers. I said, “Even if you
show it to a blind person, he will not believe you!
The weight [of the bangle] is far more.” She began
arguing with me, saying, “Sure, so what? Next year
I will buy a set of the same [weight and thickness]”.
I said “You can buy [whatever you want], but don’t
lie to me about the weight.” When Shafie took
Tooba out he bought a chilla for me too, and gave
it to me. I had asked him to buy me a chilla when
we were out shopping together, because I wanted
to choose one according to my own taste, but he
didn’t buy me one. He bought me one on the day
he went shopping with Tooba because Tooba knew
that the chilla I previously had, which had been
sold, was a meshed one, which I didn’t like because
things got caught in the mesh.
I wanted a smooth chilla, but [Shafie] had brought
me a meshed one [again]. I said, “When I asked
THE EVIDENCE
you to buy me one [when I was with you], you
didn’t. This one is meshed, [too].” He answered,
“If you don’t like it, give it to Tooba.” I flung it to
Tooba, and she exchanged it for a ring.
The next year, when we were going to Australia,
I told Shafie that I wanted to go shopping to buy
clothes for myself. He [answered] “Is it your wedding you’re going to, that you want to prepare
clothes for yourself?” [He said this to me at a time
when] Tooba was going out shopping every single
day, buying clothes and things for herself and her
children. I said nothing. One day Tooba said “I
am going shopping to buy things for the children.”
They were out until 11 o’clock [at night]. When
they returned they were not carrying any shopping bags, only a few small bags. They came in
and sat down. Shafie suddenly [turned to Tooba
and] said, “Tooba, bring out your gold and put it
on.” I saw Tooba take out her set and put it on.
Shafie said “[You look] very pretty with it”. I could
only stare. I couldn’t say anything because if I said
anything she would say “I can do what I please.
He’s not buying any for you!” She had also bought
a few small bangles and two small bracelets and
a pendant. I was half-expecting her to give one of
the bracelets to me, but she said “I have bought
these bracelets as gifts [for friends in Australia].”
She had bought the pendant for Qiam’s wife. When
we reached Australia she gave the pendant to
Qiam’s wife, but the rest she kept for herself because
the people she had bought the gifts for did not
come to see her, so she didn’t give the gifts of gold
to anyone but kept them all for herself.
When [Shafie] bought [Tooba] the gold in Dubai
I could not eat anything for a week, because he
had made a promise to me and had lied. After a
week, Tooba came to me and said “The reason
why I buy [so much] gold is for [the sake of] the
children. I [myself] don’t care much for gold. You
have a set [of gold], that should be enough for
you because you do not have any children. What
will you do with gold? You’re just making yourself miserable!” So she brought me some food
and said “He will buy you gold whenever you
wish. Don’t worry, you know that Shafie doesn’t
listen. I told him, ‘Buy some [gold] for Rona too’
but he said ‘If I buy any [gold] for Rona, she will
think I did it because I am scared of her.’ ” It was
a sly excuse that she had cooked up, but Tooba
was very smart. She would both buy gold for herself and shut me up, too. Later, after some eight
years, when I was about to go to France, I asked
her to buy me a ring, but she answered “I won’t.
You can go and find a husband for yourself who
would buy you one. I won’t be the one to buy you
[a ring].” I [needed a ring because I] didn’t have
one, so Tooba said “You can go and trade in your
pendant and buy a ring instead.” She offered to
go for me, saying “I will go, but Shafie should not
know [that I am doing this]. I will trade it in for
you. But a round pendant does not become you,
you are advanced in age. Don’t say anything about
this to Shafie.” I went with her to the jewelry store.
When we entered the jewelry store, she took me
to a display and told me to choose what I wanted,
then she disappeared somewhere. I felt lost, and
I was timid and left alone, but finally I exchanged
a small set with a ring. The vendor said “This is
18 carat gold,” and he exchanged it for a price of
1,900 dirhams.
My pendant weighed 36 grams, and the pendant [sic] I exchanged it for weighed 23 grams,
but it was 22 carat gold. When arriving in Canada,
Shafie asked me at the Canadian airport “You had
a [gold] pendant, what did you do with it?” I said
“You yourself had told me to exchange it and buy
a ring for myself, so I traded it in.” He didn’t say
anything because we were at the airport. I didn’t
THE EVIDENCE
mention Tooba’s name and the fact that she had
guided me [in the transaction]. Well, in order not
to stray from the story [of my life], I will put an
end to the gold saga.
When in Australia, [Tooba/Shafie kept taunting
me by showing off the gold that Tooba had bought],
but I resorted to patience [To “resort to patience”
is considered virtuous in underdogs, as the underdog commits the mean party to God and God
punishes them in mysterious ways as a reward to
the suffering party for “resorting to patience”.],
and consequently [Shafie] suffered huge losses in
his business. God humiliated them and avenged
me through other means. It is true that “God is
the succor of the helpless”. Before going to Australia, Shafie first filed a case for immigration to
New Zealand. Everyone was cleared for immigration [to New Zealand] except me. My medical
clearance was rejected. Parwiz, Shafie’s friend,
suggested to him, “Let’s all go to Australia. Get a
visa [to Australia], I have family there, we can [all]
go to Australia.” Shafie obtained a business visa
granting us one year’s residence in that country.
[A] lawyer told Shafie to hire legal counsel when
in Australia in order to apply for permanent resident status. When we landed in Australia, some
of Shafie’s friends advised him to buy property as
that would expedite his application for permanent
residence. Shafie eagerly bought two large houses
and a swath of land. His lawyer kept telling him
not to buy property as it would damage his case,
and to defer such purchase until after obtaining
permanent resident status. But the silly fool listened to his friends instead of listening to his lawyer, and had to auction off both his houses and
the land he had bought, incurring [great] losses
in the process. Besides this, a woman, named
[blank], who was the head of [an] association of
Afghan immigrants in Australia, advised the Aus-
tralian government that Shafie was not a desirable
person. This provided an excuse for the Australian government to [tell Shafie], “You came here
to engage in business, but you haven’t done anything for Australia. The fact that you bought and
sold property here [was for your personal gain].
You should have bought property here and employed
a number of Australians in order to benefit the
Australian government. Whatever you did, you
did with your own personal interest in mind.” So
they expelled us from that country. At this time
only one day was left to the expiry of the 3-years’
validity of our Dubai visas. We went back to the
Hayat Regency [?], a hotel in Dubai with a section
named Gilorya equipped for family sojourn. We
stayed there for three months. I have very bad
memories of this period at this hotel because Shafie
had to spend a lot of money, his bid for resettlement in Australia had failed, and he even had to
sell a house he had in Kabul [to pay for the expenses].
So he was always in a bad mood and he took it out
on me. He used to say “This is all because of you
–we had been accepted [for resettlement] in New
Zealand, but all this loss we have incurred because
of you.” But [it was not because of me], it was
because of his own stupid mistakes. Every day he
used to sit together with his [second] wife and
ventilate against me. One day he said to me, “Go
back to Kabul, I can’t keep you as my tail wherever I go.” I said, “The Taliban are in power [in
Afghanistan], how can I go back there? Many a
lion-whiskered macho brute has had to flee Kabul,
and you want to send me there?” He began hitting me. The children came in and said to him,
“Dad, stop hitting her” and he replied, “I am beating her up [to punish her] because she swore at
your mom and insulted her.” He lied because he
didn’t want to lose face in front of the children.
Whatever I did, if I sat down, if I got up, if I ate
THE EVIDENCE
anything, there was blame and censure attached
to it. In short, he had made life a torture for me.
Later they rented a house at Yasamin Building
and we moved there, and Shafie announced [out
of frustration], “For a while we won’t even talk
about an [immigration] application. We will not
apply to immigrate to any country. In some years’
time we will [revisit this issue].
Waking up in the morning some time later, I
noticed that Shafie and Tooba were not at home.
I asked Tooba’s children “Where is your mother?”
They said that they didn’t know. I thought they had
gone to see a doctor. Noon approached and still no
sign of them. That day it was Tooba’s turn to do the
cooking and the household chores, but she hadn’t
even called me [to let me know about her absence]. I
was wondering what to do, so I thought I’d do some
ironing. They finally showed up around three in the
afternoon. I asked her “Where have you been? You
didn’t even tell me anything about what to cook
[for lunch].” Tooba answered “You should have
cooked something, whatever.” [After a few minutes] I repeated, “Where have you been?” She said
“We went to see a lawyer who has filed an immigration-to-Canada application for us.” I was very upset
because they could have told me the previous night
[that they intended to do this], but she didn’t like
[to let me in on what was going on] and wanted to
arrange everything stealthily.
One day I asked [her], “You are going to go to
Canada. What about me?” She would never tell
me the truth. She answered, “You won’t be left
alone in Dubai. I don’t know, maybe he’ll send
you [back] to Kabul.” It was two years before they
were accepted [for immigration to Canada]. During these two years I worried every day, thinking
that if they are accepted and I have to go back to
Kabul, it will be very difficult for me. I was thinking perhaps I would go to [join] my family in
France. Finally, one day, after completion of the
medical tests and the paper work, [Shafie] brought
home everyone’s plane tickets [to Canada]. For
me, he had obtained a visa to Germany. Homayun
jan [“jan” is a suffix to a name, denoting [in this
case] mild affection], Tooba’s brother, had sent
me a sponsorship letter [on the strength of which]
I had been given, within three weeks, a visa to
Germany. I was very happy that day and couldn’t
wait for the day of departure, because I hadn’t
seen my family for fifteen years. We bought gifts
and Tooba packed everything that she had bought
and needed into cartons to ship to Canada by container. One month before their departure, Shafie
shipped a car together with all needed household
items, from furniture to kitchen utilities to blankets, [etc.] in a container to Canada. The night of
our departure I cleared out and cleaned the kitchen
and no one slept. Finally, after morning prayers
everyone got up at 5 in the morning and prepared
to leave. We had some 10 pieces of luggage and
departed to the airport in two taxis. My flight was
at 8:30 and theirs was at 9:00. I reached my destination after seven and a half hours, they flew for
sixteen hours with a stopover in London.
14.6.2007, Thursday, flight was at 8 in the morning and I reached Charles de Gaul airport in Paris
at 11⁄2 [sic]
When I disembarked at the airport, I saw my
mother from afar and recognized her, but I didn’t
recognize Deeba because she had filled out. When
I had [last] seen her she had married and had two
children, [but] she was young then. Now that I
was seeing her at age 42, I really can never forget that moment. I took them in my arms and
was crying. Anyway, we went home. Deeba was
chattering away but I was nodding off because
I was so tired. Next morning, I got up and realized that the children were not beside me. Deeba
THE EVIDENCE
and I were sleeping in the same room, but I was
so [emotionally close] to the children that it was
really unbearable. I cried every day; I couldn’t
even read the Koran. This was the first time I
had been separated from my [husband’s] family.
I would feel better after talking to them on the
phone or seeing them over the internet. No one
can read the future. I wish I hadn’t [missed them]
so much. After two months I went to Germany to
extend my visa, because they had [told me] that
whoever had sponsored me [in the first place]
should sign the request for extension of stay. I
didn’t know this. I went to Germany on August
8th. Homayun, Tooba’s brother, called me and
said that I should go to Germany a month in
advance [of the visa expiry date] because it was
[by appointment] and I could attend Layla jan’s
wedding also. He invited Deeba to come [to Germany] too, together with her children. Deeba was
very happy and said that we could go to Razia’s
house a few weeks [before Layla jan’s wedding]
and we’d be able to attend Razia’s daughter’s wedding also, but Razia said that she could accommodate us for a week, not more, since she would
be working. Deeba said “It doesn’t matter, I will
[do the work in your place]”. [Razia] said “It is
because lots of people would be coming for the
wedding and there wouldn’t be enough space for
all.” Deeba was upset, so when Homayun jan said
“Come to Layla’s wedding” she was very happy,
but later Homayun called and told me that I
should go to Germany with [only one companion]
because he didn’t have enough space at home [to
accommodate more]. [He said] “When the wedding is over, I will bring her [back] myself. Until
[the wedding date] she can stay with some relatives, if she has any.” Deeba said that she wasn’t
going to go at all and would go to cancel her
ticket. [When she went to do so] they checked
the computer [record] and said “Only one day
is left. No one else will buy this ticket.” [Deeba]
had paid 1,000 [for the ticket]. [The agent] said
that they would refund [only] 200. Deeba didn’t
accept and said “No matter, we will go to Nazee’s
place, my aunt’s house, Razia’s brothers’ house.”
It was finally at Nazee’s house that our schedule
was sorted out. All of us took a big bus on Saturday and went to Germany. After we left the
house we changed trains twice, once from [Le
Nyor?? Nyor??] to Poitier, [then] from Poitier
to Tour. At Tour we took the bus and went up to
Paris. [Word “Paris” is written over the crossedout word “Frankfurt”.] The bus should have let
us off at Kessel but we disembarked at Frankfurt.
We didn’t speak the language [so we couldn’t
communicate]. It was with great difficulty that
we were able to ask [sic]. At the train station [a]
vehicle from the bus company [came and picked
us up]. [They] said “A car should have come; we
don’t know, perhaps there has been an accident.
We departed 5 1⁄2 in the morning, train departure was at 6 1⁄2
Layla jan’s wedding was on August 11; at 6 in
the evening on Saturday we departed to return
to Paris.
Deeba paid 200 for the car to take us back to
Kessel. [After reaching Kessel] I called Homayun
from Deeba’s cellphone. He came and sent Deeba
to [unintelligible] Nazee’s house and we went to
Homayun’s house. At the train station Homayun
didn’t even once [invite Deeba] to go to his house,
even for a day. Two days were left to the wedding.
I was very upset but didn’t say anything. Neither
did Homayun say “Your sister can come [with
you]” after the wedding was over. I remained at
Homayun’s house for a week, then I called Deeba
to come from Nazee’s house so that we could go
back to France. My sister came to the train sta-
THE EVIDENCE
tion. We linked up there and set out for Paris. After
we reached Paris we took a bus for [Nyor??]
It was twelve midnight when we reached the
Nyor train station. Then we walked home. It was
nearly an hour’s walk. We were very tired and after
we had a bath we went to bed.
Two weeks were left to the expiry of my visa.
Deeba took me to a doctor because of the corns
in my feet and once because of my nose, and got
medicine for me because I had allergy.
After the two weeks were over I departed for
Dubai at 5 in the morning on 6 September 2007.
The departure hour from Paris was 15 1⁄2 (3 1⁄2).
It was a 7 hour journey. I reached Dubai at twelve
midnight, and by the time I reached home it was
one in the morning. It was very hot in Dubai.
After some days Ramadan began. I was in Dubai
for another one-and-a-half months after the end
of Ramadan, me and Shafie [and] Tamana [sic].
Shafie obtained a six-month visa for London for
me in order to strengthen my passport so I could
get a visa to Canada. If [Canada] wouldn’t give
me [a visa] I could go back to France. But the Canadian embassy gave me a three-month visa. We
departed on November 5 and after a two hour
stopover in London and changing planes we
departed again and arrived in Canada at 5 1⁄2
Canada time. At the Canadian airport they searched
the luggage very meticulously, item by item. Then
we set out for home. After some days Tooba sometimes used to say “Shafie was so bored at Dubai.
He can’t live for a minute without me.” She was
picking on me. Sometimes she would say “Why
did you [have to leave] France? You should have
stayed there.” Or she would say “You might stay
here on a visa for two years, three years, [but finally
you would have to go].” Or she would say “Your
family got rid of you. Who would want [a dead
weight around their necks]? She would make me
so miserable and upset. Sometimes she wouldn’t
speak with me, so I would go and speak with her
because she had my passport.Tooba used to say,
“Your life is in my hands.”
Every day I had to put up [with something].
Once [redacted], Shafie’s daughter, said to me,
“Swear upon my head: haven’t you slept with my
father?” I said, “Even if I have/do [there is nothing shameful in it] because he is my husband, but
it is not appropriate for you at this age to ask [such
a question].” Some time later one day Tooba told
Sahar to come and peel some potatoes. Sahar told
her sister Geeti to go and bring the potatoes [to
her]. Tooba said [to Sahar], “You bootlick and
fawn on others but will not come [to do my bidding].” She summoned Sahar to her and gave her
a tongue lashing. Later, Sahar came home and
[mixed] the medicine named Paizin [sic] [which
is found] in handbags for preservation [sic] in
some water and drank it. When I came and saw
what had happened I was very upset, I [slapped]
myself [ Literally: “Hit myself”; cultural gesture
of extreme anguish and helplessness] and said
“Why do you want death?
Why did you take medicine [to commit suicide]?”
Her mother said “She can go to hell. Let her kill
herself.” I said “Why should she kill herself ? Why
did you give her to me in the first place? I don’t
want this to happen.” She said “This will be the
last day for you here.” I said, “You Paghmani [34
From Paghman, area near Kabul. Here used as a
taunt.], you can’t kick me out. You are one wife of
his, I am another.” She said “You are not his wife,
you are my servant.” Later Shafie came and I went
to bed. The following morning Tooba had told
him everything. Shafie was furious at me. I told
him everything that had happened since Dubai. I
said “What is it that I am to blame for? What have
I done?” I saw that Shafie calmed down and went
THE EVIDENCE
back. After a couple of days Shafie sat me down
and proceeded to preach to me, telling me that
I should try to get along with Tooba. He put the
blame [for the clash] on me, even though I was
innocent. Each and every time since Tooba entered
our [family] Shafie has sided with her, even when
no blame attached itself to me. This sort of injustice I cannot put up with [anymore].
I was so frustrated. I used to wander in parks
and cry. When I returned home no one would
speak with me except for Geeti and Sahar, furtively, when their mother was not there. It was
very painful for me, very difficult. She wouldn’t
allow any of the children to sleep in my room. I
always had to go out to call my family in order to
calm down. Then I used to come back and prepare something for myself to eat. Tooba and I
would not speak to each other for some 5-6 months.
Then one day, when it was my birthday, Tooba
bought a cake and sent it to me by the hand of her
daughter and I went to her to thank her. Thus we
reconciled. The night before [redacted] had made
us reconcile but we still wouldn’t speak with each
other. At this juncture I told [Tooba] everything,
how life was so difficult for me here, and expressed
the hope that she would help me. She promised
me that she would.
On Thursday, 21st August at 3 1⁄2 o’clock [sic]
we left home for Toronto. We wanted to go to
Niagara Falls and rent hotel rooms for a week.
After four hours of travel, it was 20 minutes to 7
in the evening, Shafie saw the police and stopped
the car in order to change [places] with Tooba.
The police was under [a] tower and observing us
with binoculars. He came towards us . Tooba said
“I was driving”, the police said “No, it was your
husband [who was driving].” After an hour’s debate
and argument the police [impounded] the car and
called for two taxis for us, and also called for a
tow-truck and had the car towed away for a week.
We wanted to continue on to Toronto with a rental
car, but when we went to rent a car the [rental]
office had closed. If we were to go by taxi it would
have cost us $1,200. Finally we [decided to] go to
a hotel nearby. We passed the night there and in
the morning Hamed and his father took the train
to Montreal -the fare was $90- to bring Tooba’s
car. They departed in the morning and reached
Montreal in the late afternoon. From Montreal
they set off again at 5 in the afternoon and reached
us by 9 in the evening. At 10 at night we left the
hotel for Niagara Falls and after two hours we
entered Toronto city and reached Niagara after
another 1 1⁄2 hours. It was nearly 3 in the morning [when we reached Niagara] . We went to the
hotel [and stayed there] until 10 in the morning
Then we went to another hotel near the Falls
[where we had reserved rooms] for a week. It was
a Saturday [when we went to this hotel]. We stayed
at this hotel from Saturday till Wednesday, and
we visited the Falls which was very beautiful. We
explored the place a lot. On one of those days
Wahida and Farid’s wife came from Toronto. They
had prepared some kabab which they brought
with them. We left the hotel for Toronto at 7
o’clock in the morning on the Wednesday and
went to the home of Farid, Shafie’s friend. On
Thursday we went to Wahida jan’s place at 7 in
the evening and spent the night there. On the
Friday afternoon at 6 o’clock we departed to Farid’s house. Farid’s house was at Richmond Hill
(Yong St.) [sic] and Wahida’s house was at Pekaren
[sic]. Farid’s wife is a very kind lady. She made us
stay until the Sunday. On the Sunday we left for
Montreal. It was 11 1⁄2 o’clock when we left Farid’s house and came to Wahida’s, and from there
we took Tooba’s car and set out at 12, arriving
home at 6 1⁄2 o’clock.
THE EVIDENCE
TRANSCRIPTS
PAINTING A PICTURE
GOOD MORNING. On June 30th, 2009, at about
9:00 in the morning, the bodies of Zainab Shafia,
Sahar Shafia, Geeti Shafia, and Rona Mohammad
Amir, were found in a black Nissan Sentra at the
bottom of the locks at Kingston Mills.
Three of the dead, Zainab, Sahar, and Geeti,
were teen-aged girls. They were also sisters. They
were the daughters of the accused Mohammad
Shafia, and the accused Tooba Mohammad Yahya.
The accused Hamed Shafia was their oldest
brother.
The fourth dead body found in the Nissan in
the Locks belonged to Rona Mohammad Amir.
She had been a surrogate mother to the three teenaged sisters, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti. Rona was
also Mohammad Shafia’s first wife.
Ten days before Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti
were found dead, a Google search was conducted
on a laptop computer registered to Mohammad
Shafia, and used by his son, Hamed Shafia. The
Google search was in English. The words entered
were: “Where to commit a murder”.
Twenty days after Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti
were found dead, Mohammad Shafia was recorded
on a police wiretap talking with his second wife,
Tooba Mohammad Yahya. They talked about their
dead daughters. Shafia said: “May the Devil shit
on their graves!”
Twenty one days after Rona, Zainab, Sahar and
Geeti were found dead, and the day before Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya and Hamed
Shafia were arrested for their murders, Mohammad Shafia was again recorded in private conversation, this time with both his second wife and his
oldest son.
He told them: “There is nothing more valuable
than our honour”.
As you might imagine, a great deal transpired
before June 30th, 2009 to bring about these events.
And a great deal transpired after June 30th, to
bring us to this day, where Tooba Mohammad
Yahya, Mohammad Shafia, and Hamed Shafia
face trial for the planned and premeditated murders of their family members.
The Crown will present evidence that shows
that each of Tooba Mohammad Yahyah, Mohammad Shafia, and Hamed Shafia are guilty of the
planned and premeditated murders of Zainab,
Sahar, Geeti and Rona.
Over the next hour and a half, I will give you an
overview of the evidence the Crown intends to
present to you over the coming weeks.
I’d like to start my overview of the evidence by
telling you a little bit about the Shafia family, and
each of Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona.
The Shafia family is originally from Afghansitan. They immigrated to Canada in 2007.
Mohammad Shafia, who will be referred to
QMI AGENCY
The Crown presents its case against Shafia, Hamed and Tooba in its
opening remarks. (They have been edited here for length).
THE EVIDENCE
throughout the trial as Shafia, had two wives. His
first wife, as I have told you, was Rona Mohammad Amir. Throughout the trial you will hear her
referred to as Rona.
Shafia’s second wife was Tooba Mohammad
Yahya. She will be referred to throughout the trial
as Tooba.
Early in Shafia’s marriage to Rona, it became
apparent that Rona was unable to have children.
Consequently, as is custom in Afghanistan, Shafia
married a second wife. His second wife was Tooba.
As is also custom in Afghanistan, Rona continued
to live with Shafia and his second wife Tooba in a
polygamous relationship.
Tooba and Shafia ultimately had seven children
together. Rona helped raise them.
Zainab, who was found dead with her sisters
Sahar and Geeti on June 30th, 2009, was the oldest child born to Shafia and Tooba. She was followed by her brother Hamed, then her sister Sahar,
her sister [redacted], her brother [redacted], her
sister Geeti, and her sister [redacted].
As I have mentioned, the Shafia family is originally from Afghanistan, but it has been some
time since they lived there. They left Afghanistan
in 1992. By the time they immigrated to Canada
in 2007, they had lived for a number of years in
various parts of the world including Pakistan, Australia, and Dubai.
Tooba and Mohammad Shafia came to Canada
with their seven children in June of 2007. They
were all given landed immigrant status upon their
arrival.
Rona did not come with Shafia, Tooba and their
children in June of 2007. Instead, she followed
later that November. She was accompanied by
Shafia upon her entry to Canada. Although she
was Shafia’s first wife, she was admitted to Canada on a Visitor’s visa as Shafia’s cousin.
Once in Canada, the family settled in Montreal.
Together with his son Hamed, Shafia continued
to conduct business in Dubai and elsewhere.
Between 2007 and 2009, Shafia was often away
from the residence in Montreal looking after his
business interests in various parts of the world.
Hamed assisted him in Dubai and in Canada with
his business operations.
In addition to his business interests, Shafia also
had significant real estate holdings. For instance,
he owned a strip mall in the Laval area of Montreal. And he had contracted to build a home in an
upscale subdivision in Brossard, a suburb of
Montreal.
I’d like to tell you now a little bit about Rona.
Rona was 53 years old when she died.
As I have told you, while Rona was unable to
have children herself, she helped raise the Shafia
children. She loved them all.
She had a particularly close relationship with
Sahar, with whom she was found dead at the bottom of the Kingston Mills locks. As is sometimes
done in Afghanistan, when one wife can’t conceive, 40 days after Sahar was born, she was given
to Rona by Tooba to raise as her own daughter.
Rona loved Sahar dearly.
We know a lot about Rona’s life because she
wrote a document she called the “Diary of Rona
Amir”. It is more akin to a memoir. She began her
memoir in April of 2008, while she was living in
Montreal. In it, she described her life, and her
relationships with Tooba and Shafia.
Rona wrote about how Shafia’s treatment of her
deteriorated after his marriage to Tooba. She also
wrote about Shafia beating her. The beating was
witnessed by the Shafia children, who tried to
intervene on her behalf.
Rona also wrote about how Tooba treated her.
She said that Tooba schemed to separate her from
THE EVIDENCE
Shafia, and that Tooba took from her the financial management and power of the household.
I would like to tell you now a little bit about
Zainab.
Zainab was the oldest of the three sisters found
in the Nissan at the locks. She was 19 years old
when she died.
Like many teen-aged girls, she liked clothes and
dressed fashionably. She had a cell phone that she
used to send countless text messages, and take all
kinds of photos. She listened to popular music,
like Brittany Spears. And, she had a boyfriend.
Her boyfriend’s name was Ammar.
Having a boyfriend was against the rules. Tooba
and Shafia had forbidden it. But Zainab did it
anyway.
On one occasion, when her parents were away
in Dubai, Zainab invited her boyfriend Ammar
to her house.
But when Ammar got to Zainab’s house, Hamed
was spotted approaching the house. Ammar came
in the house and hid in the garage. Hamed immediately discovered him there, and ordered him to leave.
You will hear evidence that while he was Zainab’s younger brother, Hamed had a great deal
more authority in the family home. This is customary in the Afghan culture. For instance, unlike
his older sister, Hamed conducted business on
his father’s behalf. Unlike his older sister, he had
a driver’s license, and was permitted to drive
his father’s car, a silver Lexus SUV. Unlike his
older sister, Hamed’s cell phone was registered
in his own name. And, unlike his older sister, he
played a role in disciplining his siblings, including Zainab.
After Hamed discovered Zainab’s boyfriend in
their house, Zainab was not allowed to go to school.
She was also not allowed to leave the house.
When Zainab’s parents returned home, the
restrictions on her liberties continued. She was
kept home from school for close to a year. She was
also not allowed to go out.
These weren’t the only problems for Zainab.
She also suffered violence at home, at the hands
of her father, and her brother Hamed.
In April of 2009, Zainab did something about
how she was being treated at home. She ran away.
She went to a women’s shelter. She planned to
start a new life, on her own.
The Shafia household went into turmoil when
Zainab ran away. I will tell you more about that
in a few moments.
But first I’d like to tell you a little bit about Zainab’s younger sisters, Sahar and Geeti, who were
found dead with her at the bottom of the canal.
Sahar
She was the middle sister found in the Nissan. You
have heard a little bit about Sahar already, and
how she had been given to Rona to raise as her
own daughter when she was just a baby.
Sahar was only 17 years old when she died.
Sahar wanted to be a doctor when she grew up.
She wanted to be a gynaecologist, so she could
help women. She was moved by women’s health
conditions in Afghanistan.
Like her sister Zainab, in many ways, Sahar
behaved like a typical teen-aged girl. She liked
fashionable clothing. She liked to wear make-up.
She had a boyfriend.
Sahar also loved her cell phone. She used it to
text and talk to friends. She used it to take photos
of herself, with her face made-up, wearing various outfits. And she used it to take photos of her
boyfriend.
Many of Sahar’s behaviours brought her into
conflict with Tooba, Shafia, and Hamed.
For instance, at one point in time, there were
THE EVIDENCE
problems between Sahar and Tooba because her
mother had decided it was time for her to wear the
hijab, the head covering or veil sometimes worn
by Muslim women. Sahar did not want to wear it.
She particularly did not want to wear it to school.
There were other problems between Sahar and
Tooba. We know about one of them because Rona
wrote about it in her diary. This is a passage Rona
wrote about Tooba’s treatment of Sahar:
… one day Tooba told Sahar to come and peel
some potatoes. Sahar told her sister Geeti to go
and bring the potatoes to her. Tooba said [to Sahar]:
“You bootlick and fawn on others but will not
come [to do my bidding].” She summoned Sahar
to her and gave her a tongue lashing.
Later, Sahar came home and [mixed] the medicine named Paizin [sic] [which is found] in handbags for preservation [sic] in some water and drank
it. When I came and saw what had happened I was
very upset, I [slapped] myself and said: “Why do
you want death? Why did you take medicine [to
commit suicide]?”
Her mother said: “She can go to hell. Let her
kill herself.”
We know about other problems Sahar had at
home with Tooba, Shafia and Hamed because she
sometimes talked to staff at school about what
was going on at home.
Twice, school staff were so concerned about
what Sahar was telling them about her home life
that they called youth protection services.
The first time a call was made, in May of 2008,
school staff were concerned that Sahar was suicidal. They were concerned that she had been
taken out of school. They were concerned about
her reports of physical violence, including being
assaulted with a pair of scissors.
But when a social worker from the youth protection services came to the school to speak with
Sahar, Sahar would not talk to her about what was
going on at home after she found out that the
social worker would be obliged to share what she
said with her parents.
That same day, the social worker met with Tooba,
Shafia and Hamed. Tooba denied all the allegations the teachers had reported on Sahar’s behalf.
She denied she knew that Sahar was suicidal.
Shafia was very angry about the complaint. He
wanted to know who had made it. He said the
allegations were all lies.
Hamed denied the allegations he had assaulted
Sahar. He did admit that he knew Sahar was not
happy about Tooba’s decision that she and Zainab
should wear the hijab, but he stated that this is
part of their custom and religion when a female
reaches a certain age.
The social worker met with Sahar again a second
time, two days later, to see if Sahar might disclose
anything more. On this occasion, unlike their first
meeting, Sahar was wearing the hijab. Sahar
reported that things had improved at home. She
said her mother was now talking to her.
And so, although the youth protection worker
found that the complaint relating to Sahar was
founded, she determined that Sahar did not need
to be removed from the home for her own protection. The file was closed.
But this was not the end of the difficulties at
home for Sahar. They continued until the month
she died, when a second complaint was made by
school staff to youth protection authorities.
By this point in time, Sahar had a boyfriend.
His name was Ricardo. Sahar and Ricardo had
been seeing each other for a few months.
Sahar knew that her parents would not approve
of her having a boyfriend, and she took great pains
to ensure they did not find out about him.
One day, however, Sahar’s little brother [redacted]
THE EVIDENCE
discovered Sahar and Ricardo together at a restaurant near the school Sahar attended. He confronted Ricardo and wanted to know if he was
Sahar’s boyfriend. Ricardo knew Sahar was not
allowed to have a boyfriend, so he denied it. Ricardo
kissed Sahar’s friend, who was with them at the
restaurant, to help convince [redacted] that he
was not Sahar’s boyfriend.
The complaint to youth protection authorities
was made after Sahar told a teacher that she was
worried that [redacted] was going to tell her father
that she was a whore. She told her teacher she was
afraid of her father, who was about to return home
from Dubai. Her teacher decided to make the call
to youth protection authorities, to report that
Sahar was afraid of her father’s return home.
That call was made on June 5, 2009, only 25 days
before Sahar was found dead.
You will hear from Ricardo, and his aunt Erma,
during the trial. I expect Ricardo will tell you that
Sahar knew her parents would not accept their
relationship, and they were making plans to leave
Canada together.
I expect Ricardo’s aunt Erma will tell you that
when she talked to Sahar in the months before
her death, Sahar told her that if her parents found
out about her relationship with Ricardo, she would
be a “dead woman”.
got sent home from school for wearing revealing
clothing. She displayed a bad attitude and lack of
motivation in school. She didn’t attend classes. She
failed 3 of 4 classes in her final semester at school.
In the months before she died, Geeti made it
clear that she did not want to live in the Shafia
household. She had a plan with Sahar to move
away. She was particularly upset and angry when
this plan was quashed by school staff, who, upon
learning of it from Sahar, told Geeti that she could
not leave with Sahar. They told her that a 13 year
old belonged at home with her parents.
Indeed, Geeti’s desire to leave home was no
secret. She discussed it with Sahar. She told school
staff. She told police. She told a youth protection
worker.
Tooba knew this was what Geeti wanted. When
in the weeks before she died Geeti was sent home
for wearing inappropriate clothing, the school
vice-principal called home and spoke with Tooba.
Tooba told the vice-principal that she did not know
what to do about Geeti. She also told the viceprincipal that Geeti wanted to be removed from
the house by youth protection services.
Zainab runs away
I told you earlier that when Zainab ran away,
the Shafia household went into turmoil. The turmoil began when it was discovered that Zainab
had left. This was on Friday, April 17th, 2009.
Geeti
First, Hamed called 911 to report his sister
Geeti was the youngest of the three sisters found missing.
in the Nissan at the locks. She was only 13 years
Later that afternoon, another 911 call was made.
old when her life was taken.
The police were given information that four adoYou will hear evidence from police officers and lescents had talked to somebody on the street and
staff at Geeti’s school who will tell you about Geeti’s asked them to call police because their lives were
behaviour and her persistent desire to be removed in danger. As it turns out, the call had been made
from her home.
on behalf of four of the Shafia children.
You will hear that Geeti resisted authority. She
Police were dispatched in response. They located
came home late. She got caught shoplifting. She Sahar, Geeti, [redacted] and [redacted] on a street
THE EVIDENCE
corner not far from their residence. They were
coming back from school.
The police received information from the children indicating that their mother had called them,
and from her they had learned that Zainab had
left the house. The children were concerned about
the reaction of their father.
The officers accompanied the children back to
the Shafia residence, which was a few minutes
away. When they arrived, Tooba, Hamed and
[redacted] were present. There was also another
woman who was introduced as a family friend.
Shafia was not present. Zainab was not present.
Upon arriving at the residence, police spoke
with Tooba and Hamed about Zainab’s
disappearance.
Following this, police were told that there was
abuse and violence at home. At the time, the police
officers were in the living room with the four children who had initiated the call to police, as well
as Tooba, Hamed, [redacted] and the family friend.
Police then spoke with each of Sahar, [names
redacted], and Geeti outside the house. They spoke
with them individually.
While speaking with[redacted], police observed
a mark near her right eye.
When police spoke with Geeti, she disclosed an
incident that had happened a week before when
she and her siblings had been at a shopping centre and were late coming home. She told police
that her father had pulled her hair, and hit her on
the face. She told police that her brother Hamed
hit her in the eye with his fist.
Geeti also told police that her father often threatened that he was going to kill them.
When police spoke with Sahar, she disclosed
that she had been slapped by Hamed. She also
told them that she had seen the violence to which
her siblings had been subjected.
Sahar and Geeti also told police that they had
witnessed violence against Zainab. They told police
that they had seen Shafia take her by the hair
because he did not like her boyfriend. They also
told police that they had seen Shafia hit Zainab.
Sahar and Geeti told police that they wanted to
leave home because there is a lot of violence in
the home. They said they were afraid of their
father.
Shafia arrived home as police were outside speaking with the children individually.
The demeanour of the children changed when
Shafia arrived home. After his arrival, the children
stopped talking. Some of the children were crying.
The police observed that Shafia just looked at
the children. He spoke to them in another language that police could not understand.
One of the police officers recalls that [redacted]
said that what she had told police earlier was not
true. The other children were present when she
did so. The other children did not say anything
in response.
Youth protection services were notified of the
complaints being made by the children, and 5
hours after police had first arrived at the residence,
a youth protection worker arrived. The worker
spoke with Shafia, Tooba, Hamed and all the children together in the same room.
After speaking with the children, the parents,
and Hamed, the youth protection worker decided
to continue the investigation on Monday and leave
the children with Shafia, Tooba, Hamed and the
rest of the family over the week-end.
So, at approximately 11 p.m., almost seven hours
after police first arrived at the house, the police
officers and the youth protection worker left.
The week-end passed, and three of the children
were interviewed the following Monday by a police
Detective and another youth protection worker.
THE EVIDENCE
They spoke with [redacted], Sahar and Geeti.
Geeti immediately said she wanted to be removed
from the home and placed in a foster family. But
her account of the violence at home had changed.
Geeti said she wanted to be placed in a foster home
because she wanted to have more freedom.
When police spoke with Sahar, she maintained
that her older brother had hit her, but that her
father was not violent. Sahar told the police that
their older brother makes his own rules when their
father is not there, and that he is very strict.
Given what Sahar reported about the strict rules
at home, the police officer was struck by how Sahar
was dressed. She was dressed fashionably. She was
wearing jewelry. She was wearing make-up. When
the police officer mentioned that to her, Sahar
told her that she changed when she got to school.
In the end, the youth protection agency decided
to close the file. Police laid no charges. And life
resumed as it had before at the Shafia household.
Except that Zainab was still gone. And her father
and brother were determined to find out where
she was.
Two days after Zainab ran away, Hamed and
Shafia attended a police station, to speak with one
of the officers who had come to their house the
day Zainab ran away.
Hamed and Shafia were waiting for the officer
when she arrived for work. They wanted to know
if the officer had any information regarding Zainab’s whereabouts. Hamed and Shafia wanted
something to be done. They absolutely wanted to
find Zainab.
Police eventually did locate Zainab. She had
gone to a women’s shelter.
Her boyfriend knew she was there. Zainab was
also in contact with her siblings. But she had no
contact with her parents and Hamed. She told the
shelter worker that she was at odds with her mother,
father, and brother.
Zainab also reported to a shelter worker that
she was afraid of her father and brother. She said
her brother was physically abusive. She said the
conflict with her parents and brother related to
the fact that she had a boyfriend that they did not
approve of.
Eventually, Tooba learned where Zainab was
and arranged to meet with her outside the shelter. Ammar was there when they met. Tooba told
Zainab that if she would come home, she would
be permitted to marry Ammar.
At first, Zainab resisted this idea, and said there
was no way she was going back. She did not trust
that her brother and father would allow her to
marry Ammar.
Then, Tooba said that if Zainab would come
home, she would take her and her sisters and move
away from their father. She said Zainab would be
allowed to marry Ammar, and then she could
move out.
When Ammar heard this, he thought Tooba was
sincere. He encouraged Zainab to trust Tooba.
And, in time, after continued contact with Tooba,
Zainab did agree to return home.
She returned home 2 weeks after she had gone
to the women’s shelter.
After Zainab returned to her parents’s home,
as promised, plans were put in place for her to
marry Ammar.
Zainab’s marriage to Ammar took place a few
weeks after her return from the shelter, on May
18th, 2009. Shafia was still in Dubai at the time.
Other male family members, including Hamed,
made the arrangements for a religious
ceremony.
The religious ceremony at the mosque was witnessed by male members of Zainab’s family, including Hamed. A celebration with family was planned
THE EVIDENCE
for the following day at a restaurant.
The family celebration did not go well. Ammar’s
family, who did not approve of his marriage, did
not attend. But Zainab’s guests did.
So, when it became clear at the restaurant that
Ammar would not have any family in attendance,
Tooba and Hamed spoke with Zainab alone. After
15-20 minutes, Zainab spoke with Ammar. She
told him she could not do this to her family. She
said their marriage would affect her family’s reputation, and she could not do that to them.
Ammar told her that he would agree to an annulment if that was what she wanted.
In the end, Zainab and Ammar’s marriage was
annulled, that day, at the restaurant.
That day, plans were also made for Zainab to
marry her mother’s cousin, Hussein. Hussein was
the son of Tooba’s uncle Latif. Latif and his family
also lived in Montreal.
Latif had previously tried to arrange the marriage between Hussein and Zainab, not long after
the Shafia family had first come to Canada, but
this proposed marriage had been rejected.
Following the annulled marriage to Ammar, the
suggestion that Zainab should marry Hussein was
renewed. This time, all parties agreed that Zainab
and Hussein would marry.
The six weeks following Zainab’s failed marriage
to Ammar were the last six weeks of life for Rona,
Zainab, Sahar and Geeti.
As you have heard, during that time, Zainab
was planning to marry Hussein, and leave the
Shafia household.
Rona continued with her disclosures about the
misery she was enduring.
Sahar was seeing Ricardo, and planning to leave
the Shafia household. As you have heard, during
this time frame she was also reporting her fear of
her father’s return, and a second complaint was
made to youth protection services.
Geeti continued to want to be placed with a foster family. She had also been sent home from
school because she was dressed inappropriately.
She was failing 3 of her 4 classes.
All of that was going on in those last six weeks.
Hamed and Shafia in Dubai: The computer
searches begin
On the first day of June, 2009, just 30 days before
Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti died, Hamed arrived
in Dubai. As you have heard, Shafia was already
there.
Two days later, on June 3rd, while Shafia and
Hamed were in Dubai, a Google search in the English language was entered on a laptop computer
registered to Shafia, and used by Hamed. The
search entered was: “Can a prisoner have control
over their real estate”.
Ten days after the search about whether a prisoner can have control over their real estate, on
June 13th, 2009, Hamed and Shafia returned
together to Montreal from Dubai.
The Google searches continued after their return.
On June 15th, this search was entered: “facts and
documentaries on murders”.
On June 20th, this search occurred: “where to
commit a murder”.
There were other searches on that same computer during the month of June for various bodies of water. There were also searches for mountains on water, crossings of the Ottawa River, boat
rentals, bags and metal boxes. Numerous maps
and photos with a focus on bodies of water were
searched and viewed.
There was another significant event in June of
2009. On June 22nd, two days after the Google
search “where to commit a murder” was entered,
Shafia bought a used car for $5000. It was a 2004
black Nissan Sentra.
THE EVIDENCE
This was the car found at the bottom of the locks in Kingston for a period of time on June 24th.
containing the bodies of Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Sahar’s cell phone made use of the tower at StaGeeti.
tion Road for 40 minutes, between 8:36 p.m. and
9:16 p.m. The cell phone tower at Station Road is
The trip to Niagara Falls
about 1300 metres away from the Kingston Mills
On June 23rd, the day after Shafia bought the Locks.
black Nissan Sentra, all 10 members of the Shafia
By 9:23 p.m., Sahar’s phone was recorded sendfamily left Montreal.
ing an outgoing text from the cell phone tower at
The children and Rona were told they were going Centennial Drive in Kingston, a location further
on vacation. There was some confusion as to where west from the Kingston Mills Locks.
the vacation was going to be. Eventually, the chilThe cell phone records show Hamed and Sahar’s
dren and Rona were told they would be going to cell phones using towers at various points further
Niagara Falls.
West from Kingston toward Niagara Falls. By 10:04
While the family had a Pontiac Montana mini- a.m. the next day, June 25th, Sahar’s phone was
van, they did not use it for their vacation. Instead, recorded using towers in Niagara Falls.
they left Montreal in two cars: the black Nissan
Given the cell phone records and the hotel recSentra purchased by Shafia the day before, and ords for the family’s stay in Niagara Falls, we know
Shafia’s silver Lexus SUV.
the family was in the Niagara Falls area between
During the trip, Sahar and Hamed had their cell June 25th and June 29th. Sahar’s cell phone was
phones with them. Zainab also had two cell phones never recorded outside of Niagara Falls during
with her. They were out of service and did not those days.
have active cell phone accounts. Zainab used at
But Hamed’s cell phone was. On June 27th,
least one of them to take pictures.
Hamed’s cell phone was recorded receiving a call
During the murder investigation, police obtained from Sahar’s phone at 8:24 p.m. from the Westthe family’s cell phone records. Because of these brook tower located between Kingston and Odessa.
records, and because Sahar and Hamed both had This location is approximately 16 kilometres from
active cell phone accounts, we know a great deal the Kingston Mills Locks.
about where the family travelled, and when.
Hamed’s phone had no further activity recorded
You will hear evidence that first, the family until it was recorded at 7:45 p.m. the next day,
headed northeast to Mont-Laurier, Quebec, where June 28th, using a tower in Welland. Welland is
they stayed overnight. The cell phone records southwest of Niagara Falls.
show that Hamed’s cell phone had been used in
On June 29th, 2009, the family of ten checked
this area 3 days before on June 20th, the same day out of the Days Inn in Niagara Falls. The 10 of
the Google search “Where to commit a murder” them had been staying in 2 rooms. They checked
was entered.
out of one room at 11:06 a.m. Hours later, at 6:46
On June 24th, the family left Quebec and made p.m., they checked out of the second room. They
their way through Ontario in the silver Lexus and left Niagara Falls two hours later, at about 8:20
the black Nissan.
p.m. The children and Rona were told they were
Cell phone records show that the family stopped returning to Montreal.
THE EVIDENCE
We know from cell phone records that the route
taken involved going through downtown Toronto.
By 10:56 p.m., the family was in the Ajax area. At
12:31 a.m., in the early morning of June 30th, they
were recorded at a tower in Belleville. At 1:16 a.m.,
Sahar’s cell phone was recorded receiving an incoming text from the Odessa cell phone tower.
Finally, at 1:36 a.m., Sahar’s cell phone was once
again recorded receiving a text message at the cell
phone tower at Station Road, which, as I have told
you, is about 1300 metres away from the Kingston Mills Locks. This was the last transmission
and text message received by Sahar’s cell phone.
All other calls were forwarded from then on.
Hamed and Shafia at The Kingston East Motel
At 1:50 a.m., on June 30th, 2009, Hamed and
Shafia were at the Kingston East motel, which is
located on Highway 15, just south of Highway 401.
This information comes from a witness, not cell
phone records.
You will hear from Robert Miller, who was the
manager of the Kingston East Motel. I expect Mr.
Miller will tell you that at 1:50 a.m. on June 30th,
he was awakened by a call from the call box at the
front door of the Motel. Hamed and Shafia were
at the door.
Hamed and Shafia told Robert Miller that they
wanted two rooms. Mr. Miller asked them how
many people would be staying in them, which
seemed to cause some confusion. At first Shafia
said “six”. Hamed and Shafia then spoke to each
other in a language Mr. Miller did not understand.
After the conversation, Hamed said “maybe nine”.
When Mr. Miller filled out the motel’s forms, with
the assistance of Shafia and Hamed, he indicated
each room would have 3 occupants.
Soon after they checked in, Mr. Miller saw Shafia and Hamed leave the motel parking lot in the
Lexus. They were headed north on Highway 15,
toward the 401. He saw Shafia driving with Hamed
in the passenger seat.
I expect Robert Miller will testify that he remained
awake for 30 to 40 minutes after he saw Hamed
and Shafia leave the motel parking lot. I expect
he will tell you that he never saw the Lexus, or any
other vehicle, arrive at the motel during that time.
The events between 1:30 and 9:00 a.m. on June 30th
Just over 7 hours after Hamed and Shafia left the
Kingston East Motel in the Lexus, Rona, Zainab,
Sahar and Geeti were found dead, in the Nissan
Sentra, at the bottom of the locks.
The events that occurred during those 7 hours
were partially described by Tooba in a police interview that was conducted the day of her arrest for
the murders of Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti.
Later in the trial, you will see this interview in
its entirety. It has been subtitled with the English
translation of what was said, and you will have a
transcript of that translation.
Later in the trial, you will also receive instructions from Justice Maranger about what use you
may make of this statement given by Tooba.
This is what Tooba told police.
Tooba said that she was driving the Nissan Sentra when the family was approaching Kingston,
and that Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti were all
passengers in that car.
She said that Shafia and Hamed were in the
Lexus, along with the surviving children, [redacted],
[redacted] and [redacted].
She claimed that she became tired and was ill,
and wanted to stop driving. She said she sent a
text to Hamed who was in the Lexus with Shafia
and the surviving children, and a plan was made
to stop in Kingston.
Once in Kingston, she said that Shafia took
them to a location where they had been a week
THE EVIDENCE
previously on the way to Niagara Falls. Tooba
recounted how when they had stopped there on
the way to Niagara Falls, the children had wanted
to use the toilet.
Tooba told police how when they stopped before,
she had gone with the children and Rona to use the
toilet. She described the area where they had gone
as a park. She said there was a small pool there.
Tooba said that when they returned to that same
location on June 30th, the Nissan was parked, but
not on the highway. She said it was very very dark.
She told police that the plan was that she would
stay there with Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti,
while Shafia and Hamed went in search of a hotel.
Tooba told police that while she was waiting for
Shafia and Hamed to return, Zainab got out of
the car and wanted to go to the toilet. But it was
very dark, and Zainab got scared. Zainab said that
she would wait until her father returned.
Tooba said that while she was waiting in the Nissan with Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti, Shafia
and Hamed returned in the Lexus. Shafia was driving. When the Lexus arrived, Tooba said she ran
to it and got in it. She said Shafia went over to the
Nissan.
Tooba’s account of what transpired after that
was vague. She said she did not know what
happened.
Eventually, Tooba admitted that she, Shafia and
Hamed were all there when the Nissan went into
the water.
This is what Tooba had to say about that.
Tooba said that she and Hamed were walking
on a road and chatting, when they heard a splash.
They ran over and saw the Nissan in the water.
Tooba said she screamed, fainted and became
unconscious at this sight. She said the next thing
she knew she was at the motel.
As you might expect, Tooba was asked: what
assistance was offered to the girls after you saw
the car go into the water? Did Hamed go into the
water to try to save them? Tooba’s reply was simply to say that Hamed could not go into the water
to save them.
When asked why no one called police, she said:
“The police? I don’t remember the rest”. Later,
when asked why Hamed didn’t call the police,
Tooba said: “Maybe he didn’t have his cell phone”.
Tooba’s account of what happened that night
before the Nissan went into the water shed no
light on what happened to Rona, Zainab, Sahar
and Geeti between the time Tooba left them in
the Nissan, and the time the Nissan came to be in
the water. She would only confirm that they were
conscious when they were sitting with her.
The police officer interviewing Tooba made it
clear to her that he did not believe she was telling
him the whole truth, and that he knew she knew
more than she was saying. He begged her to show
respect for her dead daughters, and tell him how
they came to be in the water in the Nissan. He
told her that it made no sense that if Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti were all conscious, or even
if they were asleep, that they would stay in the car
while it was going into the canal, or that none of
them would make it out of the car after it went in.
Tooba agreed this made no sense. She said maybe
they had not come out of the car because they
were unconscious, or asleep, or scared.
But she maintained she had seen nothing before
hearing the car go into the canal.
I’d like to tell you now about the post-mortem
examinations that were conducted on the bodies
of each of Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti, and
what they tell us about how each of them died.
The autopsies were conducted by Dr. Milroy,
who is a forensic pathologist employed at the
Ottawa Hospital.
THE EVIDENCE
You will hear that in Dr. Milroy’s opinion, “drowning” was the cause of death for each of Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti.
I expect that Dr. Milroy will tell you that while
he can conclude that drowning was the cause of
death, he cannot say where the drowning occurred.
To be more specific, Dr. Milroy will tell you that
he cannot say whether the sisters and Rona drowned
in the Nissan, or at some other location.
I expect that Dr. Milroy will also tell you that
there were no signs of trauma on the bodies, with
the exception of similar moderate bruising that
was found on the same location on the crown of
the heads of each of Rona, Zainab and Geeti. Only
Sahar did not have a similar bruise.
Dr. Milroy will tell you that the bruising he
observed was “fresh”, and was caused while Rona,
Zainab and Geeti were still alive.
Now, there is one more thing that I’d like to tell
you about Tooba’s interview after her arrest.
You will see when you watch the interview that
Tooba was repeatedly confronted with the evidence that police had obtained during the course
of the investigation.
For instance, police had obtained information
that Shafia had spoken to Tooba’s brother, Fazil,
about killing Zainab. Tooba was confronted with
this information.
At first, Tooba’s response was to seek clarification about which brother police were talking about.
Later, she admitted that she knew about this conversation. Tooba knew that Shafia had spoken to
her brother Fazil about killing Zainab.
I expect that Tooba’s brother, Fazil, will testify
a few weeks from now and that he will tell you
about his conversations with each of Shafia and
Tooba about Shafia’s desire to kill Zainab. I expect
he will tell you that he called Tooba to warn her
about what Shafia’s intentions were.
I expect you will also hear from Tooba and Fazil’s
uncle, Latif, about similar conversations with each
of Shafia and Tooba.
Finally, I expect Rona’s sister Diba will tell you
that Rona told her about a conversation she overheard between Shafia, Tooba and Hamed. Rona
said that Shafia was talking about a trip overseas.
He said: “when I return, I will kill Zainab”. Rona
said that in response, Tooba asked him, “And also
the other person”? Shafia replied: “I will take care
of that other person as well”. Rona told her sister,
“when they say that other person, certainly it will
be me”.
The accused report their family members are
“missing”
I’d like to tell you a little bit more about the
police investigation, and what Tooba, Shafia and
Hamed had to say in the early days of the
investigation.
Tooba, Shafia and Hamed all spoke with police
on June 30th, the very same day the lives of Rona,
Zainab, Sahar and Geeti were abruptly ended.
Tooba’s account on that day was quite different
than the one I told you about earlier.
On June 30th, at about 12:30 p.m., Shafia, Tooba
and Hamed attended at the Kingston Police Station
to report Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti missing.
They left their other children at the Tim Horton’s
on Highway 15 before going to make their report.
There was no 911 call, ever.
By the time they attended at the Kingston Police
station to make their report, Kingston Police had
been alerted to the discovery of the Nissan in the
Locks. And so, after Shafia, Tooba and Hamed
had made their missing persons report, police
advised Shafia, Tooba and Hamed that their family
members were found dead in the Nissan at the
Kingston Mills Locks.
Shafia, Tooba and Hamed were treated as vic-
THE EVIDENCE
tims of a tragic accident in which their family
members were killed.
That same day, Shafia, Tooba and Hamed were
all individually interviewed by police. Those interviews were recorded on video, and you will see
each of them.
You will hear each of Shafia, Tooba and Hamed
reciting a similar account of what happened in the
hours leading up to the deaths of their family
members.
Each of them told police that they were travelling back from Niagara Falls when they decided
to stop in Kingston. Each of them told police that
Hamed and Shafia went in search of a hotel in the
Lexus, while Tooba waited with Rona, Zainab,
Sahar and Geeti in the Nissan at a vaguely described
parking lot.
Each of them told police that they all went back
to the hotel, and were getting settled in their
rooms, when Zainab came to her parents’s room
to ask for the keys to the Nissan so she could
remove some of her belongings from it. Each of
them told police that this was the last they saw of
Zainab.
Each of them told police that Hamed went to
Montreal that night and was not at the hotel the
next morning. Shafia and Tooba told police that
it was only when they woke up the next morning
that they discovered that Zainab, Rona, Sahar and
Geeti were all missing.
Hamed told police that his father called him in
Montreal to tell him this, and that he tried to contact Sahar’s cell phone number at that time without success.
You already know that Tooba’s account of what
happened changed after she was arrested, and
after she was confronted with the evidence police
had obtained.
Hamed’s account would also change. But sev-
eral deficiencies in his account were obvious very
quickly.
For instance, Hamed did not tell police when
he first spoke with them that he had called police
in Montreal at 7:30 a.m. that morning to report
that he had been involved in a collision in his father’s Lexus. When he called Montreal police that
morning, he said that he accidentally drove into
a parking barrier in an empty parking lot, and had
caused damage to the front end of the Lexus. There
were no witnesses to this event.
Kingston police obtained this information after
their first interview with Hamed on June 30th.
They interviewed Hamed again that day and confronted him with this information.
In his second interview on June 30th, Hamed
told police about his collision in the Lexus in Montreal that morning.
Months after his arrest, Hamed admitted that
this so-called accident was staged, because he
needed to mask the damage to the Lexus that he
knew would be discovered by police.
I will tell you more about Hamed’s statement
later in my remarks.
The damage to the Lexus
But first, I’d like to continue to tell you about the
damage to the Lexus.
The damage to the Lexus was obvious.
It was discovered by Kingston Police on July 1st,
2009, the day after Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti
were found dead.
While the surviving members of the Shafia family
remained in Kingston, Kingston Police attended
the family’s residence in Montreal on July 1st..
They were accompanied by Shafia. While police
were at the residence, they examined and photographed Shafia’s silver Lexus SUV.
Officers found that broken pieces of the head-
THE EVIDENCE
lamp assembly were still in the rear of the Lexus,
and they seized them. And they documented
other marks and damage to the left front side of
the Lexus.
Police also obtained another piece from the
Lexus’s headlight assembly from police in Montreal. That piece was gathered by Montreal police
from the site of the collision staged by Hamed.
The damage to the Nissan
In the meantime, as you would expect in the aftermath of the discovery of the bodies in the Nissan,
police had also commenced their investigation of
the scene where the Nissan went into the water.
The Nissan was removed from the canal with a
crane. After it was removed, police discovered
damage to the rear bumper and taillight assembly of the Nissan.
The taillight assembly on the rear driver’s side
of the Nissan was smashed. There was significant
damage to the rear bumper, on the driver’s side.
The letters “S” and “E” were missing from the
word “Sentra”, found on the rear driver’s side of
the trunk.
There was other damage to the vehicle too.
There were significant scrape marks and indentations on the driver’s side of the vehicle.
This is a photo of the Nissan after it was recovered
from the Locks. [show photo: slide 6 – leave up
for 10 seconds]
The evidence at the scene
Before removing the car from the canal, police
had also examined the terrain surrounding the
spot where the car went in.
The location that the Nissan was found was
peculiar. There was a set of stairs protruding from
the lock gates at the spot where the car went in.
There was also a long pole attached to the machin-
ery that opens and closes the gate. The space the
vehicle went in allowed for approximately one
foot of clearance.
The closest road access to the spot where the
car was found was blocked with locked gates. The
next access spot from the road would require a
driver to drive over a concrete curb, make a U turn
around rocky outcroppings, and then another U
turn onto an embankment that contained machinery to operate the lock gates, before arriving at
the spot where the car went in.
During their examination of the scene, police
discovered several scrape marks on the concrete
curb, and on the stone work at the edge of the lock
that appeared to be connected to the travel of the
Nissan. A significant breaking away of the stonework was found on the edge of the canal wall.
On the concrete stonework and adjacent grass
where the car went into the canal, parks employees had found two silver letters, an “S” and an
“E”. They were later confirmed to be the first two
letters from the word “Sentra”, and part of the
insignia located on the back driver’s side of the
Nissan.
At the scene, police found fragments of plastic.
These fragments were later forensically analyzed
at the Centre of Forensic Sciences. They were
found to fit together with other fragments found
the next day in Montreal in the rear of the Lexus
and at the staged collision site. They also fit together
with the damaged pieces attached to the Lexus.
Forensic analysis of other substances found at
the scene also linked the Lexus to the site. There
was green paint found on the front bumper of the
Lexus. That paint was of similar colour and chemical composition as the paint on the Parks Canada
45 gallon garbage drums located metres away
from where the Nissan went into the Locks.
Forensic analysis also later confirmed that a
THE EVIDENCE
pink/red coloured plastic deposit that was found
below the left headlight of the Lexus was composed of the same type of plastic as the broken
left taillight on the Nissan.
The Lexus pushed the Nissan into the canal
Ultimately, the vehicles, the scene, and all the
exhibits gathered there, were analyzed by OPP
officer Chris Prent, who is an experienced collision reconstructionist.
He will testify during this trial and explain his
conclusions and opinions about how the Nissan
came to be in the canal. He will tell you that in his
opinion, the Nissan did not go into the canal under
its own power.
I expect he will tell you that in his opinion, as
the front-wheel drive Nissan was going into the
canal, and its front wheels cleared the canal wall,
it became hung up on the wall. He will tell you
that in his opinion, the Lexus was then used to
push the Nissan in.
Hamed’s Account to Moosa Hadi
I told you earlier that sometime after his initial
account to police, Hamed admitted he had staged
the Lexus collision in Montreal.
I am going to take a few moments now to tell
you more about that statement.
In November of 2009, over 3 months after he
was arrested for the murders of Rona, Zainab,
Sahar and Geeti, Hamed gave a digitally recorded
statement to a man named Moosa Hadi.
At the time, Moosa Hadi was an Engineering
student at Queen’s. He had been hired by Shafia
to assist him with his defence against the murder charges. As a result, Moosa Hadi had access
to much of the information police had obtained
as part of their investigation up until that point
in time.
After many hours of reviewing the evidence
and meeting with Shafia, Tooba, and Hamed,
Moosa met with Hamed, and Hamed agreed to
let Moosa Hadi record a statement. Although
both men spoke English, the statement was given
in Dari, which is the dialect of Farsi spoken by
the Shafia family.
This is a summary of what Hamed told Moosa
Hadi about the events of June 30th, 2009.
Hamed told Moosa that the entire family traveled together to the Kingston East Motel. At
about 1:30 a.m., Rona asked Hamed to get her
a phone card, and Zainab said she wanted to go
for a spin in the Nissan. Hamed said he declined
to get the phone card for Rona, but told Zainab
to go ahead, but he would not go with them. He
said that he told them he would be leaving for
Montreal soon. He claimed that Zainab got the
key for the Nissan.
In the meantime, Hamed said that he continued
to move things into the motel. He claims he went
to check on Shafia and Tooba, and that they were
asleep. By then, Hamed said Zainab was driving
the car in the parking lot of the motel. Rona, Sahar
and Geeti were her passengers. Hamed claims he
told Zainab to be careful because she had not
driven much. He said he then decided that he
should follow his sister while she was driving, and
ensure she got back to the motel. Then, he would
go to Montreal.
According to Hamed, he drove the Lexus and
followed the Nissan as it was driven by Zainab on
Highway 15 to a gas station, which was closed.
There, he rolled down his window and said to
his sister, “let’s turn back”. He claims Zainab was
looking for a place to turn around and ended up
going down the Kingston Mills Road. He claimed
he followed them and they ended up at the Kingston Mills Locks where Zainab tried to turn the
car around.
THE EVIDENCE
While he was following the Nissan, and while
the front wheels of the Nissan were on the grass
and the rear wheels were on the road, Hamed
claimed he struck the rear taillight area of the Nissan with the driver’s side front corner of the Lexus.
Hamed claimed this collision caused the headlight
of the Lexus to break.
He claimed that while he was picking up the
broken pieces of the headlamp assembly, he saw
Sahar get out of the Nissan. Hamed said he assumed
she switched with Zainab as the driver. He said he
saw the Nissan go up onto the grass.
Then, he heard a splash.
Hamed claimed that he ran with the broken
headlight pieces in his hand, and set them down
near the water’s edge while he watched for signs
of life. He said he saw some lights still on in the
submerged Nissan.
He claims at one point he went back to the Lexus
and sounded the horn to see if anyone was there.
While at the Lexus, he got a rope. He returned to
the canal. He placed the rope over the edge. He
jiggled the rope. He saw no signs of life.
Hamed said that after about 15 minutes and no
sign of survivors, he decided to pick up the broken
headlamp pieces and go to Montreal because he
had something to do there.
He said it did occur to him to call police, but he
decided not to. He said he did not call police
because he was afraid that the police would blame
him for allowing Zainab to drive without a license,
and for bringing them there. He decided it was
better to say that he was not with them.
Hamed said that once in Montreal, he thought
about what to do and decided to stage a collision
to mask the damage to the Lexus. He claims he
took one of the pieces of the headlamp that he
had collected from Kingston Mills, and put it on
the ground at the scene of the staged collision in
Montreal. He then immediately called 911 to
report it.
Hamed said he never called police for help for
his sisters or Rona. He said he never told his parents what happened to his dead family members.
The wiretaps
At the outset of my remarks, I told you that private conversations between Shafia, Tooba and
Hamed were recorded by police. This is what is
known as wiretap evidence.
I’d like to tell you now about how the wiretaps
worked in this case.
On July 18th, police made arrangements with
Shafia, Tooba and Hamed to meet them at the
Kingston Police station. By this time, police suspected that Shafia, Tooba and Hamed were involved
in the deaths of Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti,
or that they had knowledge of how they were
killed. Police told Shafia, Tooba and Hamed that
they wanted them to come to Kingston for the
purpose of returning their belongings, because
they had seized some of them when they were
investigating at the Kingston East Motel.
They also told them they wanted them to come
to Kingston so they could go together to the locks.
Police could then explain to them how they believed
the Nissan accidentally went into the water.
The real reason police wanted to have Shafia,
Tooba and Hamed attend, however, was so that
they could install a recording device in their vehicle,
and record their private conversations.
As they were requested to do, Shafia, Tooba,
and Hamed attended at the Kingston Police station on July 18th. While they were there, police
installed a recording device in their Pontiac Montana mini-van. And, in due course, the police,
Shafia, Tooba and Hamed all went to the locks.
While at the locks, police implemented the
THE EVIDENCE
second part of their plan with another investigative tactic. Police told Hamed, who speaks English, that they had just learned that there was a
camera in the blockhouse at the locks site and
they would be analyzing its footage for clues as to
how the Nissan came to be in the water.
This is a photo that shows the blockhouse and
its positioning at the site. [show photo: slide 8 –
leave up for 10 seconds]
The suggestion by police that they had found a
camera in the blockhouse was a ruse. There was
no camera in any of the buildings, and police had
no prospect of finding video footage of what happened. Their intention in telling this to Hamed
was to prompt discussion between him and his
parents about this new piece of information, and
to record it on the wiretap.
The police tactic was successful. Sure enough,
Hamed translated for his parents what the police
had said about locating a camera at the blockhouse. And when Shafia, Tooba and Hamed left
the locks and drove back to Montreal that day,
the wiretap in their van recorded their private
conversations about the implications of a camera
being found.
You will hear their own voices as they discussed
the camera, and you will have a transcript of their
translated conversation. You will see that Shafia,
Tooba and Hamed were savvy to police tactics,
and debated whether or not to believe they had
found a camera. Shafia even suspected that a listening device had been installed in the van.
This is some of what they said:
TOOBA: There was no camera, they’re lying.
SHAFIE: Huh?
TOOBA: There was no camera, if there had been
a camera they would have taken that out first thing
on the very first day.
SHAFIE: Yeah.
TOOBA: It’s been twenty days now.
SHAFIE: Yeah.
A few minutes later, their conversation
continued:
TOOBA: There was no camera over there. I
looked around, there wasn’t any. If, God forbid,
God forbid, there was one in that little room, all
three of us would have been recorded.
SHAFIA: No, had there been one there they
would have checked it first thing and they would
have held you to account that night.
Later, there was this exchange between Shafia
and Tooba:
SHAFIA: That night there was no electricity
there, everywhere was pitch darkness. You remember, Tooba?
TOOBA: Yes.
SHAFIA: There wasn’t the slightest glimmer of
light or electricity. Even that room’s light was off.
Later still, Shafia said this to Hamed:
SHAFIA: If they have taken pictures, you and I
have been once before too [at the lock], neh? …
We were [at the lock] once before that, … and once
after. Once [when] we came to Niagara, once after
– three, four times [in all].
And finally, as Shafia, Tooba and Hamed continued their trip home from the locks, there was
this comment from Shafia:
SHAFIE: What ever type of camera it may have
been, they would have checked it during the [preceding] twenty days. If they had had any proof
they would have come [for us] a long time ago.
They wouldn’t have left you, me, or your mother
alone.
Wiretap July 19
There were many other conversations recorded
between Shafia, Tooba and Hamed.
On July 19th, just 19 days after Rona, Zainab,
THE EVIDENCE
Sahar and Geeti were found dead, Shafia, Tooba
and Hamed talked about Geeti having a boyfriend. Shafia thought [redacted] might have
introduced Geeti to a boy. Tooba said Geeti did
it all by herself, and defended [redacted] against
the accusation that he had been involved in Geeti
getting a boyfriend. Shafia referred to Geeti as
“that blasted Geeti”.
In that same conversation, Shafia also talked
about his daughters being “in the arms of boys”.
He said:
If we remain alive one night or one year, we have
no tension in our hearts, [thinking that] our daughter is in the arms of this or that boy, in the arms
of this or that man. God curse their graduation!
Curse of God on both of them, on their kind.
God’s curse on them for generation! [unintelligible] May the Devil shit on their graves! Is that
what a daughter should be? Would [a daughter]
be such a whore?
Shafia also talked about the photos of one of his
daughters, and how she was a “shameless girl,
with a bra and underwear”.
Now, at this point I’d like to tell you a little bit
about some of the photos you will see in this case.
You will recall that I told you earlier how Zainab
and Sahar had cell phones. I also told you how
they used those phones to take photos of themselves in various outfits. Some of those photos
were taken when they were dressed in only a bra
and underwear.
On each of Sahar and Zainab’s phones, there
were also photographs of their boyfriends.
We know all of this because the cell phones used
by Zainab and Sahar were recovered from the Nissan after it was removed from the locks.
You will hear from expert witnesses about the
data that was recovered on Sahar’s phone, as well
as Zainab’s.
You will also hear that Zainab’s cell phone account
was in her brother Hamed’s name. The account
was not active when the family travelled to Niagara Falls. The account had been deactivated on
June 19th, 11 days before she died. But the phone
itself, and the data it contained, were recovered
from the Nissan.
Sahar’s cell phone account was in Tooba’s name.
As I told you earlier, Sahar used her phone to take
photographs of her boyfriend, Ricardo.
Printed copies of two of those photos were
found in the centre console of Shafia’s Lexus after
it was seized by police. This is one of the two
photos of Sahar’s boyfriend Ricardo that was
found in the Lexus. When police searched the
Shafia’s residence in Montreal, they also found
a printed copy of another photo found on Sahar’s
cell phone. This one was in a suitcase. The suitcase contained an itinerary for a trip to Dubai
that had been booked by Hamed. It also contained Hamed’s passport.
Wiretap July 20
While the wiretap in the Pontiac Montana minivan was in place for less than 4 days prior to the
arrests of Shafia, Tooba and Hamed for the murders of Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti, many conversations between Shafia, Tooba and Hamed were
recorded.
Another one began with Tooba saying that she
knew Zainab was turning into a bad girl, but she
wished the other two weren’t.
Shafia responded, “No, Tooba, they messed up.
There was no other way.”
Tooba did not voice any disagreement.
Shafia went on:
No, Tooba, they were treacherous. They were
treacherous. They betrayed both themselves and
us. Like this woman standing on the side of the
THE EVIDENCE
road and if you stop the car, she would go with you
anywhere. For the love of God, Tooba, damnation
on this life of ours, on these years of life that we
lead! When I tell you to be patient, you tell me that
it is hard. It isn’t harder than watching them every
hour with boy-friends. For this reason, whenever I
see those pictures, I am consoled. I say to myself
“you did well.” Would they come back to life a hundred times, for you to do the same again”. That is
how hurt I am. Tooba, they betrayed us immensely.
They violated us immensely. There can be no
betrayal, no treachery, no violation more than this.
A moment later, Shafia continued:
Just give me one word saying “this is where you
were wrong” for me to either accept or to convince you. Everyday, I [was away with work] I was
there only in the evenings, other than that you
were always with them. You haven’t done anything against them either. But from associating
with boys you [and I] have inhibited them [because]
I couldn’t bear it.
He continued:
They committed treason themselves. It was all
treason, they committed treason from beginning
to the end. They betrayed humankind, they
everything.
Wiretap July 21
I’d like to close my overview of the evidence by
telling you about one more conversation between
Shafia, Tooba and Hamed.
This conversation was recorded following the
search of their home by police, and after they
learned they were suspected of murdering their
family members:
In this conversation, Shafia talks about his honour. He tells Tooba and Hamed not to worry about
what is to come. He directs this comment to
Hamed:
Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows
[unintelligible] nothing is more dear to me than
my honour. Lets leave our destiny to God and
may God never make me, you or your mother
honourless. I don’t accept this dishonour.
A moment later, Shafia says to Hamed: “There
is nothing more valuable than our honour.”
Conclusion
While it has taken some time, what I have just told
you is only an overview of what I expect the evidence will be.
You will hear a great deal more about the police
investigation. You will hear from a number of witnesses who will tell you what they knew and were
told about the lives of Rona, Zainab, Sahar and
Geeti.
You will see and hear the interviews given by
each of Shafia, Tooba and Hamed. You will hear
their conversations as they were recorded on the
wiretap. Much of what you will see and hear will
be subtitled, so that you will have the benefit of
the English translation as you listen to the tapes.
And, you will see the scene at the Kingston Mills
Locks, where Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti were
found. One week from now, on October 27th, the
court will travel to the site, so that you may see it
for yourselves.
You will hear a lot of evidence, and there will be
much to consider.
I know you will give the evidence your full attention, and that you will follow the instructions given
to you by Justice Maranger.
And at the close of the case, after all the evidence has been heard, the Crown will ask you to
find Tooba, Shafia and Hamed guilty of the first
degree murders of Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti.
National
FROM THE
COURTROOM
LARS HAGBERG/MONTREAL GAZETTE
Michael Friscolanti filed weekly stories as well as dispatches
from the courthouse in Kingston, Ont. This is his reporting
from the pages of Maclean’s and Macleans.ca.
FEBRUARY 13, 2012
From the pages of MACLEAN’S
WEEK ONE
The Crown’s portrait of
a toxic household
JUSTICE
House rules
At the Shafias’, court hears, men were the law, women property
and teen behaviour worthy of execution
Typical teens: The girls’ Westernized disobedience—the revealing outfits, the cellphone photos of their boy-
friends—allegedly enraged their father
CROWN EXHIBIT
On paper, Mohammad Shafia was the ideal goods and construction material. And he chose
immigrant, a wealthy, self-made businessman the posh suburb of Brossard to build a sprawling
eager to inject his dollars into the Canadian econ- mansion with plenty of room for all 10 members
omy. An Afghan who made his fortune in
of his polygamous clan: himself, two wives
THE
Dubai real estate, Shafia wasted little time
and seven children.
HONOUR
setting up shop in his adopted country.
The new house was still under construcIn 2008, a year after arriving in Mon- KILLING TRIAL tion on June 30, 2009, when three of the
treal, he purchased a $2-million strip
Shafia girls—Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and
WEEK 1
mall in Laval—with a cash down payment
Geeti, 13—were discovered at the bottom
of $1.6 million. He launched a company that of the Rideau Canal, floating inside a sunken black
imported and distributed clothing, household Nissan that also contained the lifeless body of their
“stepmother,” Shafia’s first wife,
Rona Amir Mohammad. The
four passengers appeared, at
first glance, to be the victims
of a late-night joyride gone
horribly wrong. Within weeks,
however, detectives in Kingston, Ont., offered a far more
chilling version of events, laying first-degree-murder charges
against a trio of suspects:
Mohammad Shafia, the dead
girls’ father; Tooba Yahya, their
mother; and Hamed Shafia,
their brother.
Today, more than two years
later, the Shafia patriarch
sleeps in a tiny cell with his
eldest son. His wife—the one
that’s still breathing—is locked
in a separate prison. His mansion-to-be has been sold, his
other surviving children are
in the custody of social services and his bank accounts
have no doubt been decimated
by mounting legal fees and Filial duty: Hamed was the obedient son who allegedly staked out the
crime scene
lost profits. At the Kingston,
Ont., courthouse where their murder trial is now tors are correct, Mohammad Shafia is a man at
under way, the accused threesome sits, ankles peace. Despite everything he has lost—his three
shackled, behind a thick plate of bulletproof beautiful daughters, his first wife, freedom, hot
glass. Last week, one of their lawyers had to ask suppers—he has supposedly salvaged the one thing
the judge for permission to buy them food from that truly matters: his honour. As the 58-year-old
a restaurant, because by the time they return to declared during one intercepted conversation:
jail for the night the only dinner option left is “They messed up. There was no other way.”
“cold sandwiches.”
No other way, prosecutors say, but to pile his
For most people (especially Lexus drivers who “treacherous” daughters and infertile first wife
can afford to pay cash for shopping malls), such into a car and, under the cover of midnight darkindignities would be unbearable. But if prosecu- ness, push it into the shallow waters of the KingsMACLEAN’S EBOOK EDITION
SEAN KILPATRICK/CP
ton Mills Locks.
to my brother’s wedding reception and saw me
The case raises troubling questions about a sitting there, quiet and subdued,” she wrote. “She
child protection system that has zero tolerance liked me and asked for my hand in marriage for
on bullying and sexual assualt but seems adrift her son.”
when larger cultural issues are at play. The eviFollowing tradition, Rona’s family visited Mohamdence put to the jury so far paints a damning mad Shafia’s house so he “could have a good look
portrait of life inside the Shafia world, where men at me.” Later, her brother asked if she “accepted”
were the law, women were property and typical the engagement. “I said, ‘Give me away in marteenage behaviour was a sin worthy of execution. riage if he is a good man,’ ” she recalled. “ ‘Don’t
According to the Crown, Shafia subscribed to an if he is not.’ ”
ancient unwritten (and very
They were married in Febru‘DESPITE EVERYTHING ary 1972 in Kabul. Rona wore
un-Canadian) honour code in
which a family’s reputation
a light blue dress; Shafia’s suit
HE HAS LOST, HE HAS
hinges on the sexual purity of
was purple. “After getting marSUPPOSEDLY
SALVAGED
its females. Dad allegedly grew
ried,” she wrote, “my lot in life
THE THING THAT TRULY began a downward spiral.”
so enraged with his daughters’
Westernized disobedience—
As prosecutor Laurie Lacelle
MATTERS: HIS HONOUR’
the revealing outfits, the cellexplained to the jury, Rona was
phone photos of their boyfriends, the repeated unable to conceive. Eventually, after years of failed
visits from police and child welfare authorities— fertility treatments, she told her husband: “Go
that mass murder became the only way to reverse and take another wife, what can I do?” He did.
the family’s “shame.”
Shafia’s second bride, Tooba Mohammad Yahya,
Hamed, prosecutors say, was the obedient, curly- was 17 years his junior—and pregnant within
haired son who staked out potential crime scenes months.
and tried, ever so clumsily, to cover up their tracks.
Zainab came first. Hamed, a son, was born a year
(Days before his sisters drowned, someone using later, followed by Sahar, another girl. “As is somehis laptop typed “where to commit a murder” into times done in Afghanistan when one wife can’t conGoogle.) Tooba, wife number two, was an equally ceive, 40 days after Sahar was born she was given
willing accomplice who, if the allegations are true, to Rona by Tooba to raise as her own daughter,”
was with her men when the car-turned-coffin Lacelle explained. “Rona loved Sahar dearly.”
splashed into the locks, carrying three of the chilSahar was still a baby in August 1992, when the
dren that she once carried.
family fled the Afghan civil war for Pakistan. By
the time they reached Dubai in 1996, Tooba had
Rona Amir was 53 years old when divers pulled given birth to three more children, including
her corpse from the water. Three weeks later, another daughter, Geeti. But with each birth, the
investigators found her diary. In the very first wives’ relationship grew increasingly strained.
entry, written in Dari, Rona chronicled how she Tooba, Rona wrote, was so manipulative that she
met the man who would allegedly end her life. managed to convince their husband to sleep only
“A distant relative on my father’s side had come with her. And whatever the dispute—from squabMACLEAN’S EBOOK EDITION
bles over chores to spats over gold jewellery—Shafia always sided with Tooba. “Whatever I did, if I
sat down, if I got up, if I ate anything, there was
blame and censure attached to it,” Rona wrote.
“In short, he had made life a torture for me.”
The family moved to Canada in the summer of
2007, reportedly through Quebec’s Immigrant
Investor Program, which provides visas to affluent foreigners in exchange for, among other things,
a hefty cheque made out to the province. Rona,
though, was not on the plane. Because polygamy
is illegal in Canada, she was sent to live with relatives in Germany while the others settled into a
rental apartment in Montreal. When she did rejoin
them the following fall, it was on a visitor’s visa.
(Shafia told immigration authorities that Rona
was his cousin. They believed him.)
Rona returned to a toxic household. Zainab and
Sahar longed to live like Canadian teenagers, to
wear lipstick and tank tops instead of hijabs, but
their parents (and their brother, Hamed) were
obsessed with maintaining “tradition.” Sahar complained so often about the beatings she endured at
home that school officials called the province’s
youth protection services. In one diary entry, Rona
recalled how her surrogate daughter swallowed a
bottle of pills. “She can go to hell,” Tooba allegedly
said. “Let her kill herself.”
Like her little sister, Zainab had a boyfriend.
When her parents found out, via Hamed, she was
banned from leaving the house. For a year, Zainab
didn’t even go to school. Finally—at 19—she worked
up the courage to run away.
When Hamed dialled 911 to report her missing,
CP
Foul play: The car had to jump a high curb to avoid rocks and then a narrow wall. An accident this was not.
the officer was far more alarmed by what Zainab’s
sisters were saying. Geeti, 13, revealed that her
dad yanked her hair and punched her in the face
when she was late coming home from a mall.
Sahar, 17, talked about the physical abuse she and
Zainab endured—and how she was so petrified of
her parents that she wore a hijab to school, then
changed outfits as soon as she arrived.
Zainab, it turned out, had taken refuge at a
women’s shelter, but her mother eventually convinced her to come home. She walked through
the front door on May 1, 2009, the same day her
dad flew to Dubai for one of his many business
trips. Two of Shafia’s relatives are expected to testify that he told them he was going to kill Zainab
when he returned.
Hamed, now 21, joined his father overseas on
June 1, carrying his Toshiba laptop on the plane.
Two days later, the Google searches began.
“Can a prisoner have control over his real estate?”
“Montreal Jail”
“facts documentaries on murders”
Back in Canada, school officials filed yet another
complaint with youth services after Sahar told a
teacher she was terrified that her father would
discover her boyfriend. Geeti was acting even
more rebellious, wearing “inappropriate” clothing to class and telling anyone who would listen
that she wanted out of her house. (Among the
prosecution’s exhibits is a handwritten note from
Geeti to her big sister Sahar, scattered with hearts
and red ink. “i promise before dying i’ll make all
ur wishes come true one by one,” she wrote.)
Hamed and his father flew back to Canada on
June 13, a Saturday. Over the next week, Hamed
would continue his online research (“mountains
on water,” “Metal boxes for sale”) and cancel
Zainab’s cellphone plan. On June 22, Shafia paid
$5,000 for a used car: the doomed Nissan Sen-
tra. The very next day, all 10 family members—
split between the Sentra and a silver Lexus SUV—
set off for a holiday in Niagara Falls, nearly 700
km away.
It appeared to be a standard summer vacation,
at least judging by the cellphone photos recovered by police: Sahar and Zainab in front of a
bathroom mirror, Sahar and Rona in a hotel
room, Sahar wearing a brown and green bikini.
In one self-portrait, taken just three days before
she died, Zainab photographed herself wearing
only a bra and underwear.
The Shafias checked out on June 29 and piled
into their cars for the late-night journey home.
At 1:16 a.m., after passing through Toronto and
Belleville, Sahar received a text message. The
source was a cellphone tower in Odessa—16 km
from Kingston Mills, a Parks Canada lock station
at the Rideau Canal’s southernmost tip.
Twenty minutes later, she received another text,
this one bouncing off a tower just 1,300 m from the
locks. It was the last message Sahar ever received.
The accused killers walked into Kingston
Police headquarters early the next afternoon.
Hamed, translating for his parents, told the frontdesk clerk they wanted to file a missing persons
report. (The kids who didn’t drown the night before
were waiting at a nearby Tim Hortons.) By then,
police had already been alerted to a sunken sedan
in the locks.
The Shafias initially told detectives that after
checking into a Kingston motel for the night,
Zainab asked for the car keys so she could retrieve
some clothes. The next morning, they said, the
black Sentra was missing—along with Zainab,
Sahar, Geeti and Rona. But officers on the scene
were understandably skeptical. Although it was
obvious where the car went in the water, the ques-
tion was how it got there. In order to reach the video camera that detectives were now poring
ledge, the Sentra had to jump a high curb and over. When their suspects climbed back in the
make a sharp left around a rock outcropping and van, police were listening.
then a hard right around a narrow wall. A tragic
“If, God forbid, God forbid, there was one in
accident this was not.
that little room, all three of us would have been
A closer inspection of the car revealed more recorded,” Tooba said.
incriminating clues. The ignition was turned off.
“No,” Shafia answered. “Had there been one
The front seats were reclined nearly all the way there, they would have checked it first thing and
back. And, despite the fact that none of the they would have held you to account that night.”
women was wearing a seatbelt—and the driver’sOver the next four days—until their arrests on
side window was rolled all the
July 22, 2009—Shafia ranted
‘THEY VIOLATED US
way down—not one tried to
about his “shameless” and
swim to safety. (An autopsy
“blasted” daughters being “in
IMMENSELY. THEY
confirmed drowning as the
the arms” of boyfriends. “We
BETRAYED
HUMANKIND,
cause of death, but it’s not cerhave no tension in our hearts,”
ISLAM—THEY BETRAYED he said. “May the devil s--t on
tain where they actually
drowned. Adding to the mystheir graves!”
EVERYTHING.’
tery is the fact that the medi“They violated us immensely,”
cal examiner found fresh bruising on three of he declared in another intercept. “They betrayed
the victims’ heads.)
humankind, they betrayed Islam, they betrayed
The car’s exterior also sustained damage incon- our religion and creed, they betrayed our tradition,
sistent with a speedy plunge into the water, they betrayed everything.”
including dents and scratches on the back bumOn the same day investigators executed a search
per. Even stranger, police at the locks found shat- warrant on the family home, Shafia had one of
tered pieces of a headlight that came not from his last conversations as a free man. “Even if they
the Nissan but from the Lexus. Const. Chris hoist me up into the gallows,” he told his son,
Prent, an accident reconstruction expert with “nothing is more dear to me than my honour.
the Ontario Provincial Police, examined the Let’s leave our destiny to God and may God never
shards of plastic and the dents on both vehicles make me, you or your mother honourless.”
(the back of the Nissan and the front of the
Last week, 27 months after those words were
Lexus). “It is my opinion that the Lexus was used recorded, a jury of five men and seven women
to push the Nissan over the ledge into the water,” visited the Kingston Mills Locks to get an uphe told the jury.
close view of the alleged crime scene. Parked
Eighteen days after the women died, police nearby, in a silver SUV with tinted windows, were
invited the Shafias back to Kingston to retrieve father and son, flanked by armed guards. Tooba
some belongings. While inside the station, offi- chose not to join them on the field trip, the memcers secretly installed a listening device in their ory of her daughters—or what she allegedly did
Pontiac minivan and then told them, in a classic the last time she was there—too much for a mother
ruse, that a building near the locks contained a to bear.
WEEK TWO
A mother’s damning
interrogation
JUSTICE
A MOTHER
FORCED TO FACE
THE TRUTH
Mohammad Shafia, the Afghan immigrant on
trial for quadruple “honourcide,” spent the day
watching video footage of his wife crying, denying,
and finally crumbling, under hours of police interrogation. Later that night, the 58-year-old accused
murderer was rushed from his prison cell to a hospital room, suffering from what the judge described
as a “serious medical emergency.” Whether the
recording triggered his undisclosed ailment, only
Shafia knows for sure. But the content was certainly
Family honour: Yahya arrives at court, where video of
enough to make anybody ill.
her interrogation will show she lied to police
At one point, as the camera rolls, Shafia’s wife
buries her tear-soaked cheeks in a family photo the accused “honour killers” in their native tongue.
album that contains the faces of all seven of her A veteran of major crime investigations, Mehdizachildren: the four who are still alive, and the three deh arrived in town just 48 hours before the arrests,
who were dumped, allegedly with her help,
but by the time he introduces himself to Yahya
THE
into a watery grave. “I haven’t killed,”
on the evening of July 22, 2009, he is well
HONOUR versed on the case file. “We know what has
Tooba Yahya says, in between heavy sobs.
“And I don’t want to talk.”
KILLING TRIAL happened now,” he says, his words subtiThe cop trying to convince her othertled for the jury. “But we want to know why.
WEEK
2
wise is Insp. Shahin Mehdizadeh, a FarsiWhy have four lives been lost? For what?”
speaking Mountie who was seconded to the KingsWeeks earlier, a black Nissan Sentra was discovton, Ont., force for the sole purpose of interviewing ered at the bottom of the Rideau Canal with four
CP; LARS HAGBERG/CP
Confronted with her
children’s deaths,Tooba
Yahya breaks down
four passengers, were nowhere to be found.
“So this is your story?” Mehdizadeh asks.
“Yes,” Yahya answers.
“Now I start my story.”
“Please.”
Over the next six hours, Mehdizadeh conducts
a textbook interview, picking apart Yahya’s version of events inch by agonizing inch. He praises
her as a mother, pleads with her as a fellow Muslim, and implores her to do “the right thing” for
her daughters. The more she denies, the more
evidence he reveals.
“Do you love Hamed?” he asks, referring to her
son, now 20. “Is he a good boy?”
“Hamed is a very good boy,” she answers. “Believe
me, you can go and ask his school . . . [He] doesn’t
want any grief or sorrow to touch our home.”
Why, then, was his cellphone in the Kingston area
on June 27—three days before the car was found
underwater, and while the rest of the family was still
vacationing in the Falls? Did his father go with him?
“I don’t remember it exactly,” she says.
Mehdizadeh finally sits down, his bald spot in
view of the overhead camera. “Your husband had
asked your brother’s help in killing his children,
especially Zainab,” he says. “Your brother has
told me.”
Yahya gulps.
Collapsing alibi: Under questioning from a Farsi-speaking Mountie and another officer, Yahya’s story falls apart
CP; LARS HAGBERG/CP
bodies floating inside: three of the Shafia girls—
Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13—and their “stepmother,” Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad.
Prosecutors say that what appeared to be a tragic
accident was in fact a “planned and premeditated”
massacre, committed because the girls had shamed
the family by having boyfriends and wishing to live
like typical Canadian teenagers. (Rona, it’s alleged,
was a throw-in of sorts, killed to appease her rival
wife in the polygamous household.) Shafia, Yahya,
and their eldest son, Hamed, have all pleaded not
guilty to four counts each of first-degree murder.
“The police here in Canada don’t arrest people
for no reason and put shackles on them,” says
Mehdizadeh, dressed in a blue shirt and matching
tie. He is standing beside a table in the centre of
the interrogation room, scattered with crime scene
photos. Yahya, wearing all black, is sitting on the
other side. “If you don’t want to say anything,
don’t say it,” he continues. “But listen to me. There
are lots of things here that I have to tell you.”
Yahya repeats the same story she has already spun
for police and the press. After a road trip to Niagara Falls, she says, the family of 10 stopped at a
Kingston motel for the night, on their way home
to Montreal. As she dozed off, Zainab asked for the
keys to the Sentra so she could retrieve some clothes.
The next morning—June 30, 2009—the car, and its
As the questions continue, Mehdizadeh shows
her a photograph of the Kingston Mills locks,
where the submerged car was found. In order to
reach the water’s edge, the Nissan had to jump a
high curb, make a sharp left turn around a rock
outcropping, and then another hard right around
a stone wall. And even then, he says, the Sentra
wouldn’t have been going fast enough to clear the
embankment. “Something really heavy would
have pushed the car to fall into the water,” he says.
His suspect still in denial, Mehdizadeh goes one
step further, telling her that shattered pieces of headlight from
the family’s other car, a Lexus
SUV, were recovered at the scene. “How can I dare to throw my
kids in the water?” says Yahya,
now 41.
“I don’t say you,” the inspector replies. “Have I ever told
you that you threw your kids in the water? I don’t
know whether you have pushed the car yourself
or someone else has pushed the car, but I am certain you know how this car has ended up here.”
Yet again, Yahya begins to bawl. “How did your
daughters come here?” Mehdizadeh asks, leaning closer.
“God sees everything, Madam.”
“You know what has happened.”
“What is the story?”
Inside the courtroom prisoner’s box, Mohammad Shafia wiped his own eyes with a Kleenex,
the video of his distraught wife apparently too
much to stomach.
“Madam, these poor girls had lives, these poor
girls wanted to live,” he continues. “They were
your young daughters. They were dear to you.
They have come from you.”
For a few more minutes, Yahya clings to her col-
lapsing alibi. And then she reluctantly admits, for
the first time, that her husband had talked about
killing “her.”
“Which one?” the inspector asks.
“Zainab,” she says.
Back in the prisoner’s box, Shafia suddenly
stopped crying. His wife, with nowhere to hide
from her own incriminating words, buried her
head in her lap.
“I request you one thing,” she says to the officer. “Never tell my husband that I have said this.”
She explains that her kids—the
ones who aren’t dead or under
arrest—need her now more than
ever. “I want my children not
to be raised in different houses,”
she says. “I want to be with my
kids and have them round me
under my wings . . . After this
incident happened I just decided
not to let even a hair fall off these four children
to the ground.”
What she proceeds to say, however, falls far short
of a full confession. Yahya admits that she was at
the locks that night, but that her husband “was
alone” at the water’s edge. “I heard a noise. Hamed
and I heard it. We both ran and we saw that a car
was in the water.” Then, she says, she passed out.
“Hamed went into the water to save them?”
“No. He couldn’t go into the water.”
“Why?”
“He couldn’t go. We ran and I fell down.”
And why didn’t Hamed phone 911?
“Maybe he didn’t have his cellphone.”
Luckily for her husband, when he suffered
his medical emergency in prison, someone did
dial 911. Shafia is now out of the hospital and
back in court, fit to listen to the rest of his wife’s
damning words.
Yahya, with nowhere
to hide after her
incriminating words,
buried her head
in her lap
Dispatches from the courtroom
to be a tragic accident was in fact a planned and
premeditated massacre aimed at restoring the
family “honour,” tarnished by the Shafia girls’ socalled “treacherous” behaviour since moving to
Out of hospital and back in court, Mohammad
Canada with their parents in 2007. Zainab had a
Shafia faces more damning evidence
boyfriend and ran away to get married. Sahar had
a secret boyfriend, too, and refused to wear a hijab
Accused “honour killer” Mohammad Sha- to school. Geeti, the youngest of the victims, was
fia returned to court this morning, nearly a week the most rebellious, telling teachers, social workafter being rushed from his prison cell to a hospi- ers and police that she wanted to be placed in fostal room with an undisclosed ailment. Dressed in ter care. (Rona, it’s alleged, was the inferior wife
a checkered sport coat and silver ankle chains, the in Shafia’s polygamous, patriarchal household,
58-year-old was escorted to his reserved seat inside and lost her life as a result).
a bulletproof prisoner’s box. Within minutes, he
“I am begging you,” Insp. Mehdizadeh says,
was weeping.
leaning closer to Yahya. “I kiss your hand.”
Triggering his tears (real or imagined) was the
“No, God forbidden,” she says. “Don’t say this.”
continuation of an interrogation video fea“Give me your hand, please. Give me your
THE
turing Shafia’s wife and fellow “honourhand.”
HONOUR
cide” suspect, Tooba Yahya, recorded at
She finally relents, allowing the officer
Kingston police headquarters on July 22, KILLING TRIAL to put his fingers around hers. “Your
2009—the same day the couple was
daughters deserve this,” he continues, his
WEEK 2
arrested, along with their eldest son, for
words subtitled for the jury, like a foreign
the mass murder of four family members: three film. “They deserve that at least their mother,
daughters (Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17; and Geeti, 13) their mother who has given them birth—you have
and Rona Amir Mohammad, Shafia’s other wife. breastfed them, you brought them up, they are
“I want you to start again and tell me the truth,” the apples of your eyes. Don’t you think that they
says Inspector Shahin Mehdizadeh, the Farsi- deserve that at least their mother should say the
speaking RCMP officer assigned to interview Yahya. truth? These girls are in the grave now. They don’t
By now, he has been grilling the Afghan-born have any chance in this world, no chance at all in
immigrant for more than four hours, and has this world. They have died. They are gone. Don’t
managed to cajole one key concession: that she, you think that they deserve that at least you should
her husband, and their son, Hamed, were at the tell the truth in order for them to rest in the grave
Kingston Mills Locks in the early morning dark- peacefully? Or do you want them to be cold in
ness of June 30, 2009, when the black sedan car- their grave?”
rying the deceased foursome splashed into the
“No,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.
Rideau Canal. Other than that, Yahya insists, she
was either too “sick” or “confused” or “uncon- What happened, according to the accused trio,
scious” to remember the details.
is that the family stopped at a Kingston motel for
According to prosecutors, what initially appeared the night on the journey home to Montreal. Once
NOVEMBER 8, 2011
A question of honour
Confession: During interrogation Tooba Yahya
admitted she was at the crime scene
“I didn’t have any reason and didn’t help in
this,” she insists. “In fact, I didn’t help Shafia in
killing them, believe me.”
“You had known this would happen.”
“No, I hadn’t known.”
“Madam.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Madam.”
“Believe me, I didn’t know.”
The inspector pulls out his next piece of evidence: Sahar’s cell phone records. During that
drive home from Niagara Falls, the 17-year-old
was sending text messages and chatting with
friends. And then, at 12:25 a.m.—while the family was near Belleville, an hour’s drive from Kingston—she suddenly stops responding.
Yahya’s explanation? Her daughter had a “stom-
PETER MCCABE/CP
checked in, Zainab asked for the keys to the Sentra to retrieve some clothes from the trunk. The
next morning, they say, the car—and its four suffocated passengers—were nowhere to be found.
Prosecutors have presented a much more gruesome account to the jury, alleging that husband,
wife and brother used one of the family’s other
cars, a Lexus SUV, to nudge the Nissan into the
canal. Investigators found shattered pieces of the
SUV’s headlight near the water’s edge, and scratch
marks from both cars confirm a collision. All three
suspects have pleaded not guilty.
The Crown has not alleged whether the victims
were unconscious—or already dead—before the
car hit the water, but it’s a mystery that Insp.
Mehdizadeh returns to, again and again, during
his marathon interview with Tooba Yahya.
“The whole time that the person was pushing,
pushing, pushing, these girls, all of them, are sitting in the car,” he says. “What are they doing?
Do they want to sing song while they are dying?”
“At that moment, I couldn’t see them,” Yahya
says. She is wearing all black, like a mother in
mourning should be.
“The girls, four women, are just sitting in the
car waiting for someone to come and drown them
in the water?” Mehdizadeh continues.
“How do I know that?” Yahya says. “In the darkness, it was as dark as the grave over there.”
A veteran Mountie who was born in Iran, Mehdizadeh was seconded to the Kingston force specifically to interview the accused couple in their
mother tongue. Hour after hour, he tells his target that he already knows exactly what happened,
and that he has only one question: Why? The more
she sidesteps, the more evidence he discloses.
“What reason have you had to do such thing?”
he asks. “A good mother! A good Muslim woman!
What was your reason?”
ach ache” and fell asleep.
“Madam, you saw and heard the car fall in the
water,” says Mehdizadeh, dressed in a blue shirt
and tie. “You did nothing, Madam. Neither you
did anything nor Shafia did anything nor Hamed
did anything. None of you have done anything…
The police would have come with their uniforms
and jumped in the water to save them. Nobody
has ever called the police. You just watched. You
just watched the car going in the water.”
“No we didn’t.”
“Madam.”
“I became unconscious.”
Mehdizadeh doesn’t relent. “Four people died
and everybody just watched
them?”
“I have become completely
confused,” Yahya says, running
her fingers through her hair.
“I have become completely
confused, believe me.” She is
“very nervous.” She wants “to lie down for a while.”
She is “not aware of myself, believe me.”
Mehdizadeh doesn’t believe a word. “In my
view, you are a kind of mother with a heart like a
rock. None of you, none of you have an atom-size
discomfort that your children have died.”
“I have,” says Yahya, now 41. “Believe me, I
have.”
“Madam, if you had, you would have told the
truth. You would have wanted to help us. You
would have wanted to respect your daughters.”
“I have,” she says. “These are my children.”
“Don’t say ‘my children.’ When you say ‘my
children,’ my heart gets a little pressured. Nobody
wants to see his children get drowned like this and
not tell anyone.”
“Have you killed them?” he finally asks.
“No.”
“Hamed has killed them?”
“No.”
“Shafia has killed them?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Nobody?”
“I don’t know what has happened. What has
happened I myself don’t know…somebody else
has killed them…”
“Are you afraid of Shafia?”
“No.”
“Are you afraid of Shafia?” he repeats.
“No.”
He asks a third time, and again, she denies. In
fact, Yahya says she is no longer certain that her
most incriminating statement—
that the trio was at the locks
when the car went over—is even
accurate. “It could have been
just my imagination,” she says.
Mehdizadeh tells her what
is certain: that she is charged,
along with her husband and son, with four counts
of first-degree murder. And that won’t change,
whether she reveals the motive or not. “I am sorry
for you,” he says. “I am very sorry for you because
you sent your poor children to their graves and
you don’t have a little unease.”
“I do have concern,” she says.
“You don’t have, in fact, any concern.”
“What do you know from my heart?”
“From my heart, you have been sitting for this
much time and you have just lied to me.”
“No,” she says.
Before leaving the room, Mehdizadeh makes
sure to shake Yahya’s hand. She smiles, as if the
worst is somehow over. “Have they released Hamed
and his father?” she asks. It is nearly 1 a.m. A
female officer escorts her to a cell, her first night
behind bars.
‘I am sorry for you
because you sent your
children to their graves’
WEEK THREE
A father’s denial,
an uncle’s horror
JUSTICE
Four funerals and a wedding
When Zainab weds a foreigner, her tyrant father allegedly plots
a mass honour killing to restore his honour
Safe and sound: One of Zainab’s last photos, recovered from her cellphone after her murder
CROWN EXHIBIT
Six weeks before her body was discovered in stani boy? (“Everyone, their heart was bleeding,”
a sunken black sedan at the bottom of the Rideau Hyderi explained on the witness stand last week.
Canal, Zainab Shafia was riding in a different car: “Marrying a foreigner affected everybody.”)
her uncle Latif ’s. It was May 19, 2009—the
Zainab’s answer was far more heartbreaking.
THE
day of Zainab’s wedding reception—and
“She said: ‘Dear uncle, there has been a lot
HONOUR of cruelty towards me,’ ” her uncle recalled.
the bride was wearing her dress, her skin
painted with henna. She was 19 years old. KILLING TRIAL “‘There were many other boys who wanted
As Latif Hyderi steered toward the Monto marry me. I rejected them. This boy does
WEEK
3
treal restaurant hosting the feast, he asked
not have money and he is not handsome.
his niece, yet again, the question that was torturThe only reason I am marrying him is to get revenge
ing her Afghan family, both immediate and for the cruelty of my father. I sacrifice myself for
extended. Why him? Why must you marry a Paki- my sisters so they will get this freedom after me.’ ”
Zainab had no way of knowing it at the time,
but her tyrant of a father was allegedly plotting
his own revenge: a mass “honour killing”—made
to look like a tragic car accident—that would supposedly restore his family’s good Muslim name,
blighted by the behaviour of his rebellious, disobedient daughters. Two of Zainab’s little sisters
(Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13) would drown beside
her in the Kingston Mills locks, along with their
“stepmother,” the other wife
in the polygamous household,
Rona Amir Mohammad.
Now 58, Mohammad Shafia
is charged with four counts of
first-degree murder. So is
Tooba Yahya, his 41-year-old
wife (for clarity, she is the wife
who is still breathing, and the
one who gave birth to the three dead girls), and
their eldest son, Hamed, 20. All have pleaded
not guilty.
Prosecutors say the trio used one family car, a
Lexus SUV, to push another, a Nissan Sentra, into
the canal. But the physical evidence found at the
scene—shattered pieces of headlight, a dented
bumper, bruises on three of the victims’ heads—
tells only part of the story. What really happened
in the midnight darkness of June 30, 2009, allegedly began months earlier, when Zainab committed a grave sin: falling for a Pakistani.
The jury has already heard that Zainab, like all
the Shafia girls, was essentially an inmate in her
own home. When the Afghan clan first arrived in
Canada in 2007, she was allowed to attend school—
but that abruptly ended after Hamed, her brother,
found her with a boy and alerted their parents.
Television, the Internet and meeting friends for
coffee were strictly against the rules. A driver’s
licence was a distant dream.
But by January 2009, 18 months after the family
settled in Quebec, Zainab was openly challenging
her father’s “traditional” authority. She was stylish,
loved makeup and fashionable clothes, and shunned
the hijab. For 15 years, the family lived in Dubai,
where her dad made his millions and women wore
veils. But this was Canada, not the Middle East.
That April, with the support of her boyfriend, she
worked up the courage to run away to a women’s
shelter. “She wanted her freedom,” Fazil Jawid, another uncle,
testified last week. “Zainab was
a very bright lady. She was able
to defend her rights.”
Fazil Jawid is Tooba Yahya’s
older brother, and after fleeing Kabul during the civil war
of the 1990s, he moved to Sweden and opened up a pizza shop. Speaking through
a Farsi interpreter, he told the jury that in early
2009, he received many frantic calls from his little sister in Canada, devastated by her daughter’s
defiance. “It was a hot issue in their family,” he
said. “Tooba was telling me that Zainab was marrying that Pakistani, and she asked if I could try
to convince her not to.”
Over the phone, Zainab told her uncle that
she wanted to dress like other Canadian girls—
in “regular clothing,” she said, not the kind that
would “cause anger.” She also revealed that she
wasn’t particularly interested in getting married,
but that it was the only way to escape her house.
Unable to change his niece’s mind, Jawid says
he tried to do the next best thing: fly to Canada
to find out more about the prospective groom
(his family, his finances and, of course, his reputation). But according to his version of events,
when he phoned Shafia, who was in Dubai on
business, Zainab’s father had a much different
Shafia said of his
oldest daughter Zainab:
She is a whore, she
is dirty and she has
cursed her father
idea. “He told me: ‘I want help from you,’ ” Jawid
said. “He told me a plan he has to fulfill: the
murder of Zainab.”
Describing his eldest child as a “whore” and a
“prostitute,” Shafia asked Jawid to invite the girl
to Sweden and plan a barbecue or a beach vacation, something near water. Once there, he said,
Shafia would join them—and throw Zainab in. He
said Shafia’s goal was clear: “I want to kill her.”
“How did the phone call end?” asked Gerard
Laarhuis, one of the prosecutors working the case.
“I swore at him and cut the line.”
Latif Hyderi, the other uncle, told the court that
he endured a similarly vulgar call from Zainab’s
dad. “I am ashamed to repeat the words,” said the
65-year-old, sporting a short, grey beard. “It was
very, very insulting. Those words should not be
said to a human being.”
“We need to know what those words were,” said
Laurie Lacelle, another prosecutor. “We know you
don’t mean disrespect.”
Hyderi composed himself, then spoke into the
microphone. “He said she is a whore, she is dirty,
and she has cursed her father.”
Hyderi is the brother of Tooba Yahya’s father
(Zainab’s grandfather). Like Jawid, he was unable
to persuade his great niece to call off the nuptials.
So, acting on Yahya’s direction, he made sure that
at the very least, things were done properly. He
summoned a Montreal mullah and acted as a witness for the couple’s nikah, the Islamic marriage
ceremony. Then he booked the restaurant, an Ira-
SEAN KILPATRICK/CP
A man with a plan: Shafia allegedly told two relatives he wanted to murder his daughter
nian joint, for the next day’s reception.
After her arrest, Yahya told a police interrogator that she drove Zainab to a salon to get her hair
styled that morning, and to buy a dress. She admitted to the officer that she was heartsick over her
daughter’s decision, and tried, countless times,
to get her to back out. “I said: ‘My child, don’t do
this, don’t do this,’ ” she said. ‘You’re betraying
yourself. You’re a beautiful girl, young, wellbehaved, everything good. Don’t do this.’ ” However, she also insisted that once Zainab made up
her mind, she gave her blessing. “I said: ‘Okay,
my daughter. When you want it, I don’t have a
problem. I did my obligation for you.’ ”
Shafia stuck to the same dubious storyline during his post-arrest interview. “My daughter, whoever she chooses, this is her word,” he told the officer. After all, he shrugged, we’re in Canada now.
“The boys and girls are in the same school,” he said.
“When you come here, you accept this here.”
Ironically enough, a few hours after she was
driven to the restaurant by her uncle Latif, Zainab
demanded a divorce. Nobody from the groom’s
family showed up—his parents didn’t approve of
the union, either—and the couple had nowhere
to spend their first night as husband and wife.
“Tooba just fainted,” Hyderi testified. “She fell on
a chair. People were throwing water on her. Zainab
threw herself on the chest of her mother and said:
‘If you do not agree, I will reject this boy.’ ”
The groom, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, agreed to the annulment. “He said:
‘If the girl doesn’t want me, then I don’t want her,
either,’ ” Hyderi said. “Everybody was crying.” Such
shame. Such embarrassment. Such dishonour.
Thankfully, uncle and mother found a facesaving solution: Zainab could marry one of her
uncle’s relatives, a good Afghan boy. Thrilled
with the development, Hyderi again phoned
Shafia in Dubai to share the good news. “He said:
‘Okay, just wait until I come home,’ but he was
still angry,” Hyderi testified. “He said: ‘I’m not
happy. She didn’t do a good thing. If I was there
I would have killed her.’ ”
Hyderi tried to calm him down, saying that
“children can make mistakes,” and that “the matter was solved; his honour was in place.” But Shafia repeated his message: don’t do anything until
I get home.
In the meantime, while waiting for the engagement to become official, Hyderi tried to lecture
Shafia’s son about life in a Western country. (A former mujahedeen fighter who battled the Russians
in Afghanistan, Hyderi has lived here for 11 years.)
“I said: ‘Make sure [Shafia] knows his surroundings. You have to make sure your father knows the
conditions. He should not put the girls under this
much pressure.’ ”
Shafia flew back to Montreal on June 13. Hyderi
was later told that Shafia kissed Zainab “on the
forehead” and assured his daughter that all was
forgiven.
The last time Hyderi saw the family, they were
in the parking lot of a Montreal grocery store, luggage packed for a road trip to Niagara Falls. “Tooba
was very scared, and she was in an unusual condition,” he recalled. “I told her: ‘This girl is our
trust with you. You have to bring her back safe
and sound.’ ”
Zainab never did come back. Among the evidence seized from the sunken Nissan Sentra
was her cellphone, full of photographs. In one
shot, she is cuddling with her Pakistani boyfriend, two weeks before running away from
home. In another, taken just days before her
death, she is holding hands with her uncle Latif ’s
relative, her shirt and nail polish the same shade
of light blue.
massacred three of his daughters (Zainab, 19;
Sahar, 17; and Geeti, 13) and his other wife, 53-yearold Rona Amir Mohammad.
“Sahar is talking to her friends every second or
sending texts,” the officer tells Shafia. “Perhaps
you know her. She was your daughter.”
Under interrogation, Mohammad Shafia insisted
“Yes, yes,” he answers.
that he loved his three dead daughters—but not
The evening of June 29, 2009, was no excepthe cellphone bills
tion. The polygamous family of ten—husband,
two wives, and seven children—was on its way
Prosecutors have told a jury in Kingston, home from a family vacation in Niagara Falls,
Ont., that Mohammad Shafia was a tyrant of a piled into two vehicles: a black Nissan Sentra and
father, an Afghan immigrant so obsessed with a silver Lexus SUV. Sitting in one of the cars was
restoring the “honour” of his family that he Sahar, rifling off text after text to pals back home
drowned his own daughters because they wore in Montreal: 7:59 p.m., 8:03 p.m., 8:07 p.m.,
make-up and dated boys and had dreams of their 8:10 p.m., 8:11 p.m.
own. But during the opening moments of
“All the time she is using it,” Mehdizadeh
THE
his post-arrest interrogation, broadcast
says, pointing to the printout.
HONOUR
in court for the first time on Wednesday,
“She was always using it like that,” her
Shafia looks hardly the menace, slouched KILLING TRIAL father answers.
in a wooden chair and barely whispering
At 10:54 p.m., while the clan was stopped
WEEK 3
his responses.
at a McDonald’s just east of Toronto, Sahar
Wearing slacks and sandals, he tells the cop on had a 36-minute conversation with a friend. But
the other side of the table that being slapped in when that friend phoned back at 12:25 a.m., nobody
cuffs was a “violation of his right,” that his life is picked up. From that moment on, she didn’t
“ruined,” and that the person who really killed his respond to another text or answer another call.
kids “should be found” and punished.
One of those incoming messages, sent at 1:36
More than half an hour ticks by before the a.m., bounced off a cellphone tower near the
accused mass murderer shows any real emotion. Kingston Mills Locks, where the four bodies were
The topic? The cellphone bills that one of his dead discovered the next morning inside the subdaughters racked up.
merged Nissan.
“Four hundred dollars, three hundred dollars,
Father, mother and son have all pleaded not
the bill was coming,” he says, visibly upset. “I said guilty to four counts each of first-degree murder.
I couldn’t pay it.”
They initially told police that after checking into
The man asking about the bills, Inspector Sha- a Kingston motel for the night, Zainab, the eldest
hin Mehdizadeh, is not interested in the dollar of the doomed sisters, asked for the keys to the
figure. He shows Shafia the phone records because Sentra to retrieve some clothes. The next mornthey seem to bolster the police’s theory: that he, ing, they claimed, she and the others were nowhere
his wife, Tooba Yahya, and their eldest son, Hamed, to be found.
NOVEMBER 10, 2011
‘Where is your
honour?’
Prosecutors tell a much more shocking story,
alleging that Shafia, Yahya, and Hamed staged
what appeared to be a tragic accident in order to
restore the family’s Muslim honour, blemished
by the girls’ so-called “treacherous” behaviour
since arriving in Canada in 2007. By the time
Mehdizadeh introduces himself to Shafia on the
morning of July 23, 2009, he has already coaxed
a quasi-confession out of his wife. The night before,
in the same creaky, uncomfortable chair that Shafia now sits, Yahya admitted that the threesome
was at the locks when the car splashed into the
water, but that she “became unconscious” and
doesn’t remember anything else.
“My children, my kids, I loved
them with my heart, with my
heart,” Shafia tells Mehdizadeh, a Farsi-speaking Mountie
dispatched to Kingston for the
sole purpose of interviewing
the accused “honour killers”
in their mother tongue. “They were pure and sinless kids. They were our children.”
The inspector is doesn’t hide his cards. “I want
to tell you that we are certain that you, your wife,
and Hamed had involvement in the killing of
them,” he says, his words subtitled for the jury of
seven women and five men. “You are a wise man.
I will prove to you that you had planned this.”
Shafia responds with a line that he will repeat
over and over for the next two hours: “We don’t
lie.” (Except, of course, all the kids not named
Hamed, who “told a lot of lies” to a lot of people
about the toxic household they lived in and the
repeated beatings they endured.)
Along with cellphone records, Mehdizadeh
explains exactly what police do when they find a
corpse, let alone four: they scour the scene for
physical evidence, interview potential witnesses,
look for surveillance cameras, and, when a suspect surfaces, plant wiretaps. He then pulls out
an overhead photo of the alleged Rideau Canal
crime scene. Shafia, now 58, says he recognizes
the place. “I came with my wife and put flowers
over there.”
Mehdizadeh says that a homeowner who lives
on the other side of the water was on his balcony
at 2 a.m. on June 30, 2009, and saw two cars,
including an SUV with its headlights on. Twenty
minutes later, the witness heard a splash and a
horn. “My wife loves her children more than herself,” says Shafia, growing more combative by the
question. “She loved her children more than me
and still does.” Besides, he says,
how could they throw four
grown people in the water?
“They would have screamed.”
Raised in Iran, Mehdizadeh
tells his target that he understands the ancient concept of
gharait, or honour, and that sometimes when
immigrants come to countries like Canada the
daughters want “to do this and that, things that
are not Islamic, like to have boyfriends or work.”
Trying to bait Shafia, he goes so far as to say that
Zainab “wasn’t a good girl.” But Shafia doesn’t
bite, insisting that he would allow his daughters
to choose their own husbands—even that “Pakistani boy” Zainab was seeing. “When people plan
to come here [to Canada] they know all these
things,” he says. “The boys and girls are in the
same school…When you come here, you accept
this here.” (The jury has heard otherwise—that
Zainab was petrified of her father, banned from
leaving the house, and once ran away to a women’s shelter).
Again, Mehdizadeh switches focus, asking about
Rona, the eldest of the victims fished from the
‘You are here for the
murder of four people.
Four people. It is not
a joke.’
Nissan. To police—and to immigration authorities—Shafia identified her as a cousin, but in truth,
she was his first wife. He only married Tooba
Yahya, now his alleged co-conspirator, because
Rona could not bear children. Yet even when presented with a wedding photo, Shafia denies that
Rona was his bride. “It was her birthday or something,” he says of the picture. “This is not
marriage.”
Why were shattered pieces of a Lexus headlight
found at the locks? Why was the Nissan’s back
bumper dented and scratched? Who used the SUV
to push the Sentra into the water? “As much as
you want, you can lie to me,” Mehdizadeh says.
“But you telling me a lie, it’s not like I will leave
this room and say: ‘I am really sorry, please, you
can go and continue your life.’ You are here for
the murder of four people. Four people. It is not
a joke.”
“I know it,” Shafia says.
He also knows, thanks to the inspector, that police
installed listening devices in his home and in his
third car, a Pontiac mini-van. (In one intercept, Shafia says of his daughters: “May the devil shit on
their grave!” In another, he declares that “there is
nothing more valuable than our honour.”)
“You are a father,” Mehdizadeh says. “Maybe
they were not very good girls, and you might have
thought: either they should listen to me or they
couldn’t be alive?” He then shows Shafia, one by
one, the photos of the dead. “They have told us
that you have pushed the car in,” the officer says.
“Why should I do this to my children, for God’s
sake?” Shafia responds.
“I am not sitting here to tell you that you have
done it or haven’t done it. I know you have done it.”
Shafia laughs.
“I want to know why,” Mehdizadeh says.
“No.”
“I want to know why,” he repeats.
“No.”
“Your own children. Where is your honour?”
“My honour is honour,” Shafia answers.
“You don’t have honour.”
“No, don’t say this word.”
How can a man have honour, and not weep at
the sight of his daughters?
“I am upset,” he says. “Crying is not in my control…I had lots of cry…I have suffered so much…
I have lost my heart.”
“You haven’t suffered so much because I had
been listening to you,” Mehdizadeh says, referring to the wiretaps. “You haven’t suffered so
much.”
Shafia doesn’t budge from his story, not an inch.
More than once, he taps the inspector’s knee for
emphasis.
“Swear to Allah.”
“I don’t tell lie.”
“I am not ashamed in my conscious mind.”
“I wish God would have taken my life and spared
their lives. I would have been ready.”
Mehdizadeh has heard enough. He collects the
papers on the table and stands up to leave. “A
small Nissan car became their grave,” he says, glaring down at Shafia. “Whoever does this, he is a
criminal, he is a person who in fact doesn’t have
a heart.”
“You are absolutely right,” Shafia answers.
“He is dishonourable,” the inspector says. “He
is the worst, dishonourable person in the world.”
“Yes, I agree,” says Shafia. “The worst disrespectful, the worst ill-mannered person in the world.”
Still standing, Mehdizadeh tells Shafia to “remember” those words when his day in court finally
comes. “You don’t have even a little honour,” he
says, walking toward the door. “The honour of
your family is in the hands of your women.”
NOVEMBER 10, 2011 • 99:99 a.m.
The Shafia clan,
in their own words
Caught on tape, a family of accused ‘honour
killers’ falls for a police trap
Weeks from now, a jury in Kingston, Ont., will
huddle in a private room to decide whether the
heads of the Shafia clan—father, mother, and eldest
son—massacred nearly half the family. Much of
their discussion will revolve around cars: why one
became an underwater coffin, whether another
was a murder weapon, and what was said (or not
said) inside a bunch of others.
In court on Thursday, prosecutors at the alleged
“honour killing” trial provided a small sample of
the latter, playing the first of many intercepted,
in-car conversations between the accused trio:
Mohammad Shafia, 58; Tooba Yahya, 41; and
Hamed Shafia, 20. Their words fluctuate between
incriminating and idiotic. At one point, Hamed
himself says that the cops probably planted a hidden bug in their mini-van. “They can fasten something to record your voice,” he tells his parents.
In fact, they fastened it in the very day those
words were utttered—July 18, 2009—while the
threesome was inside police headquarters retrieving some of their dead relatives’ belongings.
Just 2½ weeks earlier, three of the Shafia sisters
(Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17; and Geeti, 13) were discovered at the bottom of the Rideau Canal, floating
inside a sunken Nissan Sentra with their “stepmother,”
Shafia’s first wife in the polygamous household, Rona
Amir Mohammad. Investigators were fairly certain
that Shafia, Tooba and Hamed used the other family car, a Lexus SUV, to nudge the Nissan over the
edge. But to flush out their theory, the cops planted
something else with their wiretap: a ruse.
Investigators told the Shafias that they found a
surveillance camera near the Kingston Mills Locks,
and were poring through the footage for clips of
how the car sank. As soon as the family climbed
back in the van and steered home to Montreal,
the chatter began.
“There was no camera over there,” Tooba says,
in Dari. “I looked around, there wasn’t any. If,
God forbid, God forbid, there was one in that little room, all three of us would have been recorded.”
“No,” her husband answers, the sound of the van’s
engine in the background. “Had there been one
there, they would have checked it first thing and
they would have held you to account that night.”
Later, he reminds his wife that “there was no electricity there, everywhere was pitch darkness.”
“Yes,” she agrees.
At another point on the tape, Tooba phones
home to check on the other three kids—the ones
she didn’t allegedly kill. Mom wants to make sure
they ate breakfast.
According to prosecutors, what initially appeared
to be a tragic accident was in fact a planned and premeditated execution aimed at restoring the Afghan
family’s “honour,” which had been tarnished by the
teens’ so-called “treacherous” behaviour since immigrating to Canada 2007. The dead Muslim sisters
loved fashionable clothes and dated boys and longed
for the freedoms they found in their new country.
(Court has also heard that Rona, unable to conceive,
endured years of emotional and physical abuse at
the hands of both her husband and fellow wife.)
“The water was quite deep, not shallow,” Tooba
points out, in another line captured on tape.
When conversation shifts back to the supposed
video camera, Shafia repeats his stance: “They’re
lying.”
WEEK FOUR
The son’s unbelievable story
JUSTICE
A LOYAL SON,
A RUTHLESS
BROTHER
When police searched Hamed Shafia’s Montreal bedroom in the summer of 2009, they found
a short essay written for a recent school assignment. The title was: “Importance of Traditions
and Customs.” Today, inside a Kingston, Ont.,
courtroom—where Hamed and his parents are on
trial for the mass “honour killing” of four family
members—the essay has a new title: Exhibit #2.
“Traditions and customs are to be followed till
His rules: Hamed Shafia, 18 years old when he was
the end of ones life,” Hamed wrote in his opening
arrested for killing his sisters, was the family enforcer
line, his mistakes marked by a teacher’s pen. “It when his father was away
doesn’t matter at all weather your close to the
community following the specific traditions
cash, and the inevitable inheritance of his
THE
or living millions of miles away. Traditions
dad’s multi-million-dollar business. (In one
HONOUR memorable car-ride conversation, capand customs of a person is like his identity and what makes him special.”
KILLING TRIAL tured by a police wiretap in the days before
Hamed was 18, toothpick skinny with
their arrests, father asked son if he had
WEEK
4
a mop of curly black hair, when he printed
any small bills because “sometimes they
those ominous words. The eldest son of a
don’t accept hundreds” at the gas station.)
wealthy Afghan entrepreneur, he had immigrated
But as his essay reveals, young Hamed was not
to Canada less than two years earlier, and already easily corrupted by money or cars or other Westenjoyed what most in his adopted country can only ernized excess. His “traditions and customs” were
dream about: a Lexus in the garage, a wallet full of so important—his family’s reputation so paraMACLEAN’S EBOOK EDITION
MARCOS TOWNSEND/THE GAZETTE
Like his father, Hamed Shafia
believed nothing comes before
family honour
is any punishment,” he would proclaim, “let me
have it.”
Hamed was born in Kabul. His father, Mohammad Shafia, had two wives: Rona, who was infertile, and Tooba Yahya, who would bear all seven
of the children. When investigators found Hamed’s
essay, they also stumbled upon Rona’s diary. Written in Dari, it offered a rare glimpse of life inside
the Shafia house—including the time she took a
nasty fall while cradling baby Hamed. “Through
the grace of God both of us recuperated,” Rona
wrote. “My husband, though, treated me very
badly after that and he used to say time and again,
‘You dropped my son,’ and I used to reply, ‘I didn’t
do it on purpose, I was hurt too,’ but he used to
say, ‘I don’t care about you, you hurt my son.’ ”
Hamed was still a toddler when the family fled
the Afghan civil war and settled in Dubai, where
Shafia made his fortune. Hamed was not the old-
CROWN EXHIBIT
mount—that he allegedly helped his mother and
father execute three of his own sisters because
they had the nerve to wear revealing clothes and
fall in love. “They betrayed Islam,” his father
declared during another intercepted rant. “They
betrayed our religion and creed, they betrayed
our tradition, they betrayed everything.” (His
father’s first wife in the polygamous clan, Rona
Amir Mohammad, was also found in the Rideau
Canal, floating alongside her “stepdaughters” in
a sunken sedan.)
On New Year’s Eve, Hamed will turn 21. When
court is in session, he sits between his parents in
a glass prisoner’s box, his hair neatly trimmed,
his ankles cuffed. Across the street, at the campus of Queen’s University, hundreds of undergrads his age walk to class and drink lattes and
behave like young Canadians do—the very same
offence that was allegedly enough to snuff out
his sisters’ lives. Last week, as
the jury watched a recording
of Hamed’s post-arrest interrogation, a field trip of high
school students took in the
proceedings. Some looked
older than him.
What they saw on the screen
was the last stand of a fiercely
loyal son, a soft-spoken but
unwavering young man who
not only stuck to his suspicious story, but repeatedly
asked to see the photographs
of his sisters’ corpses. Months
later, that same man would
completely alter his version
of events in the misguided
hope of freeing his beloved
parents from prison. “If there
est child; his sister, Zainab, was born a year earBut even before the forensic tests came back,
lier. But by the time the family relocated to Que- police were suspicious of the victims’ dry-eyed
bec in 2007, 16-year-old Hamed was more of a relatives—especially Hamed, who just so hapthird parent than a sibling, keeping close tabs on pened to drive back to Montreal right after the
all his sisters.
“accident” and crash the Lexus into a parking
Ammar Wahid experienced Hamed’s iron fist lot pole, an apparent attempt to mask the prefirst-hand. The two attended the same high school, vious damage.
and on Valentine’s Day 2008 Wahid sent Zainab
Father, mother and son told police the same
a card. She replied with an email: “firstly be aware initial story: they checked into a Kingston motel,
of my bro,” she wrote; “if my bro is around, act Zainab asked for the car keys to retrieve some
like complete stranger.” On the
clothes, and when they woke
IN AN ESSAY, HAMED
witness stand, Wahid recalled
up the next morning, the fourthat when Hamed did discover
some was gone. But their words
WROTE: ‘TRADITIONS
their secret romance, Zainab
recorded on the wiretaps,
AND
CUSTOMS
ARE
TO
never came back to school.
which were also played for the
BE FOLLOWED TO THE
As the jury has been told
jury last week, tell a much more
numerous times, Zainab evenincriminating tale. “Be I dead
END OF ONE’S LIFE’
tually worked up the courage
or alive, nothing in the world
to run away from home, taking refuge at a wom- is above your honour,” Shafia said. “Isn’t that
en’s shelter. When Hamed phoned 911, the right, my son?”
responding cop heard much more than a missing
The very next morning, father and son were in
persons report. Sahar, 17, told the officer that her the back of a police car, charged with four counts
brother slapped her in the face and made “his each of first-degree murder. “Don’t worry, my
own rules” when their dad was away on business. son,” said Shafia, now 58.
Geeti, 13, begged to be placed in foster care.
“I’m not worrying, only about my mother,”
All three sisters—Zainab, Sahar and Geeti—would Hamed replied.
be dead within weeks.
“It’s okay, my son.”
Prosecutors say the accused trio, obsessed
Once inside the interrogation room, Hamed’s
with restoring the family’s tarnished honour, biggest concern remained the same. “Is my mom
booked a Niagara Falls vacation as a ruse to lure in one of the cells?” he asked Det. Steve Koopman.
the girls (and their stepmother) to a watery “If I can just see her on my way back . . . ”
grave. During the midnight drive back to Mon“Probably not,” the officer replied. “We nortreal, the threesome allegedly used one car, a mally don’t have the prisoners interacting, espeLexus SUV, to push the other, a Nissan Sentra, cially male and female sides of it.”
over the edge of the Kingston Mills locks. Inves“Even if it’s a mother and son?”
tigators who scoured the scene found smashed
“Right now you guys are co-accused.”
pieces of the SUV’s headlight, and scratch marks
Like Koopman, Sgt. Michael Boyles tried to
from both vehicles confirmed a bumper-to-bum- wrestle a confession from the son by pinning blame
per collision.
on the father. “You’ve been caught for four murMACLEAN’S EBOOK EDITION
dition’s wrong. What I’m here
to tell you is what you did in
Canada is illegal.”
Hamed stood up and asked
to be returned to his cell. “I’m
getting a bit of a headache,”
he said. “I just want to go.”
Another three months would
pass before Hamed offered
some semblance of an explanation—not to police, but to a
translator/amateur investigator hired by his father. During
a jailhouse meeting on Nov. 7,
2009, Hamed told Moosa Hadi
that he did, in fact, follow his
sisters out of the motel parking lot that night, just to make
Sibling fear: In an email, Zainab warned her boyfriend to ‘be aware
sure they made it back safely
of my bro’
after buying phone cards at a
ders, but I don’t think that you were the one that nearby gas station. The pumps, though, were
made this decision,” he said. “I don’t think you closed, and while looking for a suitable place to
were the one to say: ‘I’m tired of my sisters get- turn around, Hamed said he rear-ended the Nisting Westernized. I’m tired of the disrespect. I’m san. Moments later, while picking up shards of
tired of them not doing what they should. I want shattered headlight, he heard the splash.
them killed.’ I don’t think you said that, I really
According to Hamed’s new narrative, he beeped
don’t. I think your father has problems.”
his horn, lowered a rope into the water—and then
But Hamed didn’t cave. Instead, he asked to drove the Lexus back to Montreal because he had
see the full-page photos of his dead sisters. “They some “business” to deal with. He never told his
deserve to know the truth,” Boyles said, as Hamed parents what happened, he said, and didn’t call
stared at the departed. “I’m not trying to disre- police because they would “blame me” for allowspect your father, but your father is a certain type ing Zainab to drive without a licence.
of man. And I think he expected certain things
At the end of his audiotaped statement, Hadi
from some of your sisters, and I think that wasn’t asked Hamed one last question. “What do you
happening and he dealt with it the wrong way. want to be in the future?”
He dealt with it as a traditionalist, how his cul“I wanted to study business,” he answered.
ture, how his upbringing has taught him to do.
Under different circumstances, Hamed probAnd he’s raised you like that. I’m not going to sit ably would have done well in college. The teacher
here and tell you your culture’s wrong or our tra- who graded that essay gave him 70 per cent.
CROWN EXHIBIT
Those damning words were secretly recorded
on the evening of July 20, 2009, just 18 hours
before Shafia, Yahya, and their eldest son, Hamed,
were arrested and charged with four counts each
of first-degree murder.
On Monday, a jury in Kingston, Ont., heard
perhaps the most incriminating evidence to date:
hours of police wiretaps that captured the trio’s
The jury at the Shafia murder trial hears more
own voices when they thought they were alone.
damning wiretaps
Defiant, delusional—and utterly unrepentant—
Shafia rails against his dead daughters (“May the
Mohammad Shafia was blessed with seven chil- devil sh– on their graves!”) and vows that “even
dren, praise be to God. Three are now dead, alleg- if they came back to life a hundred times,” he
edly at his behest. Three are living under a differ- would slay them again. “Not once, but a hundred
ent roof, allegedly for their own safety. And one times, as they acted that cruel towards you and
is on trial with him, allegedly at the crime scene— me,” he tells his wife. “If we remain alive one night
along with his mother—on the night his
or one year, we have no tension in our hearts,
THE
“treacherous” sisters were dumped into
[thinking that] our daughter is in the arms
HONOUR of this boy or that boy.”
the Rideau Canal.
Yet to hear him say it, Mohammad Sha- KILLING TRIAL
In every chilling conversation, dad’s
fia was the model Muslim father: genermessage is the same: “Nothing is more
WEEK 4
ous, selfless and never “meddling” in his
dear to me than my honour.”
kids’ affairs. “We were not a strict family,” he insists
In the final days of their investigation, detecto his wife and fellow murder suspect, Tooba Yahya, tives bugged the family mini-van, the Shafia home
in one conversation captured by police. “We were in Montreal, and numerous telephone lines. More
kind of [a] liberal family.” He recalls how he let his than once, Hamed warns his parents to watch
children play at the park, took them on Friday after- what they say (“They can fasten something to
noon picnics, and if they needed money, he never record your voice,” he says during one conversasaid no. “You and I, we carried these children on tion) but they just can’t stop talking about the
our backs,” he continues. “We subjected ourselves dead girls. “Filthy.” “Rotten.” “Whore.”
to hardships, we took on drudgery for them, we
In one exchange, Shafia rants about Zainab, the
wash their sh– and pee, we wash their clothes.”
eldest of his deceased daughters, who ran away
All he asked for in return were obedient daugh- with a Pakistani boyfriend and married against
ters who wore the hijab and stayed away from her family’s wishes. “She could have found a decent
boys. “They committed treason from beginning person, she could have found an Afghan,” her
to end,” Shafia declares. “They betrayed kindness, father says. “I would have given her away and
they betrayed Islam, they betrayed our religion would have said: ‘Go and get lost.’ You and I both
and creed, they betrayed our tradition, they were trying to find a good person to give her away
betrayed everything.”
to. We weren’t going to keep her for ourselves!
NOVEMBER 15, 2011
‘Nothing is more
dear to me than
my honour’
That wouldn’t have been an appropriate thing.”
In another intercept, Zainab’s mother agrees
she was sinful, but wishes that the other two
daughters—Sahar and Geeti—could have been
salvaged. Her husband quickly cuts her off,
reminding Yahya of the pictures they found on
the girls’ cellphones, showing them cuddling
with boyfriends and posing in revealing clothing.
“For the love of God, Tooba, damnation on this
life of ours, on these years of life that we lead!”
he barks. “When I tell you to be patient, you tell
me that it is hard. It isn’t harder than watching
them every hour with boyfriends. For this reason, whenever I see those pictures, I am
consoled. I say to myself: ‘You
did well.’ ”
On July 21, the day before
the arrests, police executed a
search warrant on the Shafia
home—and in the process, provincial authorities removed the
remaining children (two daughters and a son, whose names
are protected by a publication
ban). Later that night, while
riding in the Pontiac mini-van, Shafia insists that
his “conscience is clear” and that his daughters
were “punished” by God. “Even if they hoist me
up onto the gallows…nothing is more dear to me
than my honour,” he says. “Don’t think about it,
don’t worry about it. Whatever the eventuality, it
is from God. We accept it wholeheartedly.”
Back home, in the early morning of July 22,
Hamed receives a cellphone call from one of his
younger sibling, now a ward of the state. The child
tells Hamed that the police interviewed each of the
them separately, and that they suspect quadruple
homicide. “So Hamed, what’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know man,” Hamed answers.
“Should I kill myself, Hamed?”
“No man, don’t do anything like that. Don’t do
anything like that.”
“Look Hamed, you are 100 per cent caught.”
“They are making up stuff,” he answers. “Don’t
say this stuff on the phone…It’s, like, easily recorded.”
Later, Yahya takes the phone and speaks to her
surviving children. She tells them not to cry, and
asks if they’ve eaten. “Just tell them what they
want,” she says, referring to the police. “At no time
did I do something like this and at no time did this
happen. Let them take us wherever they want.”
Before hanging up, Hamed
has another conversation with
one of the children, who mentions that the police asked
whether Zainab complained
about her father. “I was like:
‘Yeah, but you know, I used to
do the most bad stuff and all
that, but they didn’t kill me.’ ”
The call ends at 3:57 a.m. Five
hours later, Hamed and his
father are in the back of a police
car. It, too, is equipped with a listening device.
As the car steers toward Kingston police headquarters, 300 km away, there are fleeting moments
when Shafia sounds like the good father. He urges
his son to have a drink of water (“It’s no good if
you don’t eat,” he says) and tries to assure him
that things will work out. “We haven’t done anything wrong. They did it themselves…Our own
children brought this ruin.”
When Hamed points out that “we may not be
able to see [each other] again,” the response is
typical Shafia.
“I commend you to God, my son.”
CROWN EXHIBIT
Yahya agrees Zainab was
sinful, but wishes that
the other two daughters
could be salvaged
NOVEMBER 15, 2011
Hamed Shafia:
The good son
An accused ‘honour killer’ sticks up for his
parents—and demands to see photos of the dead
Hamed Shafia wants to look at the photographs of his dead sisters, their drowned bodies
freshly extracted from an underwater car. Sgt.
Michael Boyles tries to convince him otherwise,
but Hamed is nothing if not determined. He wants
to see the corpses. “Please,” he says quietly.
“Alright,” Boyles answers.
It is July 23, 2009, almost 3 o’clock in the morning, and the 18-year-old Afghan immigrant is sitting in a police interrogation room in Kingston,
Ont. A video camera is rolling. He has just been
arrested—along with his beloved mom and dad—
for the alleged “honour killing” of four family
members: three sisters (Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17;
Geeti, 13) and his father’s first wife in the polygamous clan, Rona Amir Mohammad. The doomed
foursome was found, nearly a month earlier, at
the bottom of the Rideau Canal, the victims of
what investigators say was a mass execution meant
to look like a freak car accident.
For three hours, officers presented Hamed with
clue after damning clue, including their smoking
gun: shattered pieces of a Lexus headlight found
at the midnight crime scene. (The victims were
discovered in a submerged Nissan Sentra, but
prosecutors allege that the family’s other car, a
silver Lexus SUV, was used to ram the sedan over
the edge of the Kingston Mills locks.) As Hamed
flips through the full-page photos, his eyes fixated
on the departed, Boyles urges him to finally come
clean. “They deserve to know the truth,” he says.
“They deserve better than this.”
“I seriously don’t know,” Hamed says, repeating his token response, but never lifting his head.
“Well, you have to explain it to me,” Boyles says.
But Hamed has his own question. There are
only three photos here. Where is Geeti, the youngest of the girls?
“Hamed, look at me,” the sergeant says, swiping away the pictures. “Your father shouldn’t have
got you involved in this, or your mother. But he
did. You need to tell the truth. You need to give
them peace and let the world know what happened.” Hamed, who has barely slept over the
past 48 hours, stares at the floor. “You’re doing
them an injustice,” Boyles continues. “Not only
are they looking like this, being brought out of
the water, now you’re going to sit here and dishonour them and lie and protect your father.”
QMI AGENCY
“I’m not protecting anyone,” he insists. “It’s
the truth.”
“It’s not the truth.”
Again, Hamed reaches for the photos, but this
time Boyles refuses to hand them over. “Why
should you get to look at them if you can’t look
at me and tell the truth?” he asks. “Why would
they want you to see them like this? You can’t even
tell the truth of how they ended up like that.”
But the answer Boyles is searching for never
comes. During the four-hour interrogation, broadcast for a jury on Tuesday, Hamed Shafia sticks to
the same suspicious story he has been telling police
since day one: the family went
on a trip to Niagara Falls,
stopped at a Kingston motel for
the night on the way home to
Montreal, and the next morning, the girls were gone. No
matter how much incriminating evidence the cops provide—or how increasingly
ridiculous his answers sound—Hamed doesn’t
budge. In the rare moments when he does show
emotion, he is talking about his “depressed” mother,
not the three daughters she allegedly helped kill.
Hamed, prosecutors say, was the obedient, curlyhaired son who staked out potential crime scenes
and tried, ever so clumsily, to cover up their tracks,
while Tooba Yahya, wife number two, was an equally
willing accomplice who helped lure the girls to their
grave. All three have pleaded not guilty.
Det. Steve Koopman is the first to question
Hamed, dressed in green cargo pants and a black
shirt. The two developed a somewhat friendly relationship over the previous three weeks, and investigators hope that Koopman can cajole a gentle
confession. In one classic exchange, the detective
goes so far as to commend Hamed for the manner
in which the girls perished. “I’ve heard that drown-
ing is one of the more peaceful ways to go,” he says.
But Koopman doesn’t mince words, either, telling
his target that “there’s absolutely no doubt” who
committed this crime. “It’s not a question of: did
it happen?” he says. “We know what happened.
It’s a question of why it happened.”
Koopman suggests—repeatedly—that Hamed’s
dad was the mastermind, and that the other two
had little choice but to follow his command. “Was
it a train going down the tracks?” he asks. “Is it
something that you couldn’t stop and is it because
your dad had made up his mind?” When Hamed,
now 20, refuses to implicate his father, Koopman
shifts his focus to the shards of
headlight scattered at the locks.
Hamed’s explanation fluctuates
between “I don’t know” and
maybe somebody planted the
evidence there. “You need to
understand how serious this is,”
Koopman says, growing more impatient as the
interview drags on. “The fact that you’re thinking
this, in essence, is still a game is pretty scary.”
“You are now doing the worst dishonour out of
everyone because you know what?” Koopman
continues. “You didn’t want this to happen. If you
could take it back, you would. I don’t know if I
can say so much about that with your dad. But I
know that you would not want that to happen
again, and if that if you could go back to that day,
you would do something to change it.”
After 2½ hours, Koopman’s tender approach
proves fruitless. His replacement in the room, Sgt.
Boyles, shakes Hamed’s hand, pulls up a chair,
and leans in close. “I’m telling you you killed your
three sisters, you understand that?” he says, skipping the small talk. “There’s millions of people in
this province. Everything’s pointing to you, your
father and your mother.”
‘Hamed, look at me, your
father shouldn’t have
got you involved in this,
or your mother.’
In fact, Boyles tells Hamed that in a nearby interrogation room, his mom has just admitted that all
three were at the locks the night the Nissan splashed
into the water. “I think you have honour, and I
think you have the ability to tell the truth to us,”
Boyles says. “I don’t think you’re a bad person.
Hamed, look at me. I think mistakes were made.
You guys came up with a plan and it went bad. You
made a lot of mistakes and now you’re caught.”
Like Koopman, he wants the answer to only one
question: Why? Why did those four women have
to die? “I’m not from your culture,” says Boyles, a
tall, stocky blond who easily outweighs Hamed by
100 pounds. “Certain things offend me and certain
things are different in my culture than yours, I
understand that. What I don’t understand is how
does it go this far? What causes this to happen?”
“It’s nothing,” Hamed mumbles.
“Oh, it’s not nothing, Hamed. Three young girls
were murdered. Not to leave out Rona, but three
of your sisters were murdered. It’s not nothing.
It’s very serious.”
“It is very serious,” Hamed agrees. “But I don’t
know nothing to help you.”
A few minutes later, Hamed asks—yet again—to
view the photos of the dead. “Just for a second,”
he says. Boyles refuses.
“I don’t think that everyone that goes to jail is
bad,” the sergeant says. “In my opinion, you’re a
victim of circumstance, to some degree. I’m not
trying to disrespect your father, but your father
is a certain type of man. He’s very traditional, from
what I understand, and he has certain rules and
certain values and he expects certain things from
people. And I think he expected certain things
from some of your sisters, and I think that wasn’t
happening and he dealt with it the wrong way. He
dealt with it as a traditionalist, how his culture,
how his upbringing has taught him to do. And
he’s raised you like that. I’m not going to sit here
and tell you your culture’s wrong or our traditions
wrong. What I’m here to tell you is what you did
in Canada is illegal, and now you have to own up
to it. You have to tell us the truth.”
Hamed mumbles something that isn’t audible
on the tape.
“You guys aren’t mastermind criminals,” Boyles
continues. “You guys aren’t hit men. You guys
don’t know how to cover your tracks properly.
You don’t know how to get away with things.”
As the clock approaches 3:30 a.m., Hamed asks
to go back to his jail cell. “I’m getting a bit of a
headache,” he says. “I just want to go.” But before
leaving, Boyles pulls out a laptop and plays a short
clip from his mom’s interrogation. Beside the computer are the corpse shots that have so transfixed
him over the past few hours.
“She saw these pictures?” Hamed asks, referring to his mother.
“Oh yeah,” Boyles says. “She saw them.”
In the clip, a tearful Tooba Yahya, now 41, admits
that all three accused were at the fatal scene in the
early morning hours of June 30, 2009, but that
she fainted after the car plunged into the canal
and doesn’t remember anything else. Hamed
glares at the screen, showing no reaction as her
words fill the room.
“Is your mother lying to us?” Boyles asks. “That’s
all I’m asking. I mean, if you’re telling me the
truth, Hamed, then your mother must be lying.
You know what I like about you? You can’t say that
because you respect your mother and you love
her, and you know she’s telling the truth. You’re
not going to sit here in front of the camera, and
me, and call her a liar when you know she’s telling the truth. And I respect that. That’s an honourly, manly thing to do.”
Hamed stands up. “Can I go now?”
WEEK FIVE
The Shafia sisters’ cries
for help—and the secret texts
that helped seal the case
JUSTICE
The three who lived
Mohammad Shafia and Tooba Yahya were the courtroom. It’s as if they, too, no longer exist.
blessed with seven healthy children. Three are
Yet their recorded words, and the testimony of
now dead, allegedly drowned by mom and dad. others who knew them, offer a chilling glimpse
One is in shackles, his parents’ accused accom- inside the Shafia house, where lying, snitching and
plice. And the other three—alive, but not necsibling rivalry were all encouraged evils in a far
THE
essarily well—are at an undisclosed locamore sacred pursuit: upholding the famiHONOUR ly’s “honour,” which literally lived or died
tion, removed from the family home for
their own safety.
KILLING TRIAL on the perceived conduct of its females.
For weeks now, a jury in Kingston, Ont.,
Jurors have been told that two of the
WEEK
5
has listened to the heartbreaking story of
surviving children (we’ll call them “A” and
three Afghan daughters who immigrated to Can“B”) were spying on the others at school, reportada, but were never allowed to be Canadian. ing back to mom, dad and brother Hamed. At
Mother, father and brother dumped them in the one point, “B” actually switched sides and comRideau Canal, prosecutors say, because they weren’t plained to police about problems at home, only
behaving like good Muslim
girls should. Two even had boyfriends. “Whores,” as dad called
them, oblivious to the police
wiretap recording his rant.
Those same wiretaps, like so
much of the evidence in this
twisted case, also include the
voices of the other three Shafia
children—the ones who weren’t
at water’s edge that night, either
as victims or alleged perpetrators. But because of a sweeping
publication ban, nothing about
their identities (name, age or
gender) can be repeated outside Protective: Sahar (left) wanted to get a job and rescue her sister Geeti
CROWN EXHIBIT
What we know of the three children not dead or on trial
offers a chilling glimpse into the Shafia household
to recant the story. Later, when investigators raided
the house in Montreal, that same child told their
mother over the phone: “You should get a lawyer
and keep saying: ‘No, we didn’t do it.’ ”
And it was the third child—“C”—who triggered
most of mom’s tears during her interrogation. “I
am worried about all of them,” Yahya sobbed. “But
[“C”] is so attached to me.”
An Afghan businessman who made his millions
in Dubai, Shafia moved his clan to Montreal in
2007. Their house on Bonnivet Street included his
first wife, the infertile Rona Amir Mohammad.
By the fall of 2008, four of the kids were attending the same high school: Sahar, Geeti, “A” and
“B.” (Zainab, the eldest sister, was under virtual
house arrest after being caught with a boyfriend,
while Hamed, who discovered said boyfriend, was
enrolled elsewhere.)
Some days, Sahar came to class in tears; once,
a teacher noticed bruises and scratches on her
arm. The 17-year-old confided that her dad and
brother were abusive, and that “B”—an “exemplary student,” as one teacher testified—acted as
the parents’ eyes and ears. One day, Sahar’s mother
went so far as to confront a teacher, demanding
to know if her daughter “had kissed a boy.” (“B”
acted as mom’s translator, from French to Farsi.)
Sahar, in fact, did have a boyfriend, and was terrified that “A,” who also saw them together, would
tell their father. She wanted to get a job and find
her own apartment—and rescue her little sister,
Geeti, in the process. At just 13, Geeti was the most
rebellious, skipping class, flunking courses, and telling everyone she wanted to be placed in foster care.
Geeti said the same thing on April 17, 2009,
when two police officers came to the house. That
morning, Zainab had run away with her boyfriend, and the constables were responding to
Hamed’s frantic “missing persons” report. Geeti
said her father had threatened to kill them; Sahar
said her brother slapped her. Both said they
wanted out.
While talking to “B,” one of the officers “observed
a mark near [the] right eye.” The child provided
a statement, and although the contents have not
been disclosed in court, this much is clear: as soon
as Shafia walked through the door, “B” took everything back, insisting it “was not true.”
Less than three months later, Zainab, Sahar and
Geeti would be found at the bottom of the Kingston Mills locks, floating in a sunken sedan with their
“stepmother” Rona. The family had been driving
home from a Niagara Falls vacation, and according
to prosecutors, “A,” “B” and “C” were at a nearby
motel during the midnight execution.
Social workers seized the survivors on July 21,
2009, the day before their parents and brother
were handcuffed. Hours before the arrests, investigators were eavesdropping when the kids called
Hamed’s cellphone.
“You are 100 per cent caught,” said “A.”
“They are making up stuff,” Hamed answered.
“Don’t say this stuff on the phone.”
When Yahya came on the line, she told “C”
not to cry, urged “B” to “eat your food properly,”
and asked “A” what the police told the kids. “Are
they saying that they have 100 per cent proof or
just suspicion?”
“The man told me that: ‘I believe that those
three did it,’ ” “A” answered.
“Let them say what they want to say, my child,”
Yahya said. “As long as you are happy and you
don’t worry about anything.”
In the coming weeks, defence lawyers will call
their first witness. It’s not known whether any of
the surviving children will take the stand. But if they
do, for those sitting in the prisoner’s box, it could
be the closest they’ll get to a family reunion.
Hamed called back. “They didn’t come yet,” he
told the dispatcher.
Sister submerged in a car? Dangle a rope, then
drive away.
Sister leaves home, with a note explaining her
desire to be free? Calling all cars.
At the trial, a cry for help
According to prosecutors, there is an obvious
reason why nobody dialed 911 in the early mornMother and son have both confessed, in sep- ing hours of June 30, 2009: a quadruple execuarate tape-recorded statements, that they were tion was underway, and criminals like that don’t
there when the car-turned-coffin plunged into tend to report themselves. The Crown contends
the canal. Beyond that, their recollections couldn’t that what was supposed to look like a tragic joybe more different. Tooba Yahya told police that ride was actually a mass “honour killing” meant
she fainted after hearing the splash, and
to restore Mohammad Shafia’s good MusTHE
doesn’t remember anything else about
lim name, tarnished by disobedient daughHONOUR ters who dated boys and flaunted their
“the accident.” Hamed Shafia, meanwhile, claimed that both his parents were KILLING TRIAL beauty. Floating beside Zainab in the
actually fast asleep at a motel, and that
sunken Nissan Sentra were two of her
WEEK 5
his sister, Zainab, somehow steered the
little sisters—Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13—and
sedan into the Kingston Mills Locks while he and their dad’s first wife in the polygamous clan, Rona
his Lexus were parked nearby. Hamed, of course, Amir Mohammad, 53.
did what anyone would do if four of his closest
A jury will ultimately decide whether father,
relatives drove into a body of water. He tossed mother and son are guilty of mass “honourcide,”
down a rope and wiggled it around, like a fisher- and the panel has already heard overwhelming
man hoping for a bite.
evidence of the forensic and wiretap variety. But
As absurd as both stories sound, there is one on Tuesday, jurors got the clearest glimpse yet of
common denominator: in neither narrative does everyday life inside the Shafia home, and how one
Hamed dial 911.
decision—Zainab’s gutsy escape—rattled the clan
Tooba? “Maybe he didn’t have his cell phone.” to the core.
Hamed? “I thought that if I call the police, they
And likely sealed her fate.
would blame me that [Zainab] didn’t have a license.”
Hamed made those two 911 calls on April 17,
Yet there was the same Hamed Shafia, just ten 2009, a Friday. But his older sister’s quiet rebellion
weeks before his sisters perished, frantically doing began more than a year earlier, when Ammar Wahid,
what he should have done that night. Nobody was a high school classmate in Montreal, sent her a Valdrowning. Nobody was in imminent danger. But entine’s card. She responded with an email. “firstly
he had the phone on his ear, desperate for the be aware of my bro,” she warned. “if sometimes
cops to come to the family’s Montreal condo wanna talk come in the library. and if my bro is
because Zainab—at age 19—had “run away.” When around act like complete stranger…i don’t want to
a few minutes passed without a knock at the door, give him the slightest idea that we r friends.”
NOVEMBER 23, 2011
A history of violence
at the Shafia home
For any of Mohammad Shafia’s daughters, having a boyfriend—or even talking to a boy—was a
cardinal sin (punishable, it’s alleged, by death).
So when Zainab invited Ammar to her house one
day in March 2008, she made sure it was safe:
her parents were visiting Dubai, her younger siblings were at school, and Hamed was out. But
when her brother unexpectedly returned home,
and found Ammar hiding in the garage, the
romance was over. Zainab would never return to
Ammar’s school.
Court has heard that she became a prisoner in
her own bedroom, permitted
to leave only for meals and to
use the bathroom. Nearly a
year would pass before Zainab,
hijab on her head, was allowed
to enroll at a different school.
“i miss you bad,” she wrote to
Ammar in December 2008. “i
still rem the way u told me u love me the first tym.”
(Zainab, ever the rebel, also said she figured out
a unique way to wear the Muslim head scarf. “i
take out a bit of ma hair and I tie the hijab at back
and put on some big circle earings. i will try sending u a pic.”)
In early 2009, the couple was once again meeting in secret, at the library, in parking lots, at
McDonald’s. “She wanted to have her freedom,
and to marry me,” Ammar testified on Tuesday.
By April, Zainab worked up the nerve to write her
note and walk away. “She said: ‘Come get me,’ ”
Ammar told the jury, recalling the phone call he
received that morning. “ ‘If not, I’m taking a taxi
and I’m leaving.’ ”
Neither of the 911 operators that spoke to
Hamed seemed particularly concerned that a
19-year-old woman had left home on her own
free will. (Hamed himself quoted Zainab’s letter
to one of the dispatchers: “I want to live my own
life.”) But for the Shafias, the development was
devastating, so much so that when some of the
younger siblings found out, they were afraid to
even go home. Instead, they asked a stranger on
the street to phone 911.
Anne-Marie Choquette, a Montreal constable,
responded to the call with her partner. According to an agreed statement of facts read to the
jury by prosecutor Laurie Lacelle, Choquette
encountered four of the Shafia children huddled
on a corner: Sahar, Geeti and two others, who
are still alive and can’t be identified because of a publication
ban. “ Their mother was
reported to be afraid for their
lives because the oldest daughter Zainab had left the house,”
Lacelle said. “The children
were concerned about the reaction of their father to this information.”
After escorting the kids back to the house, Choquette “received disclosure that there was abuse
and violence at home.” The officers then interviewed each of the children alone, outside. Sahar
said Hamed slapped her, and that her father hit
Zainab “because he did not like her boyfriend.”
Geeti said that a week earlier, after coming home
late from a mall, she was beaten by both her
brother and her dad, who “threatened that he
was going to kill them.” Both Sahar and Geeti
“told police that they wanted to leave home
because there is a lot of violence in the home.
They said they were afraid of their father.” When
interviewing one of the other children, Choquette
“observed a mark near [the] right eye.” Although
the child provided a statement to police, the specifics have not been disclosed in court. However,
this much is clear: when Shafia came home later
Sahar said that her
father hit Zainab
‘because he did not
like her boyfriend’
that evening, that particular child recanted, insisting that the earlier statement “was not true.”
That family member (again, no identifying details
can be revealed) stuck to the same revised story
again and again—a chilling detail that has hovered over the trial since day one. Might there
have been five bodies inside the Nissan? Did one
of the other Shafia children escape death by denying what police originally heard?
What is certain is that neither Sahar nor Geeti
changed their stories. They “stopped talking” after
their father came home, but they didn’t recant.
At 9 p.m., a worker from Quebec’s child and
family services arrived at the house, and after voicing “cautions” to the parents, “decided to continue the investigation on Monday.” Constable
Choquette believed “there was lots of evidence
that permit her to lay a criminal charge. Her explanation for not laying a charge is that in Quebec,
police have a protocol with child and family services, and they decide whether to lay charges.”
In a different part of town, at the “Passages”
women’s shelter, Zainab was settling in for her
first night away from home. On the witness stand,
NATASHA FILLION/THE GAZETTE
Lock down: The Shafia home became a prison for Zainab, permitted to leave her bedroom only for meals
employee Jennifer Brumbray testified that Zainab
was not “our typical clientele” and “kind of stood
out” because of her fashionable outfits and bubbly personality. But the abuse she endured at home
was no less disturbing, Brumbray told the jury.
“She spoke of the psychological and physical violence at the hands of her brother. She was afraid
of him.” (During a brief cross-examination, Shafia’s lawyer, Peter Kemp, suggested that Zainab
must have been well taken care of because “she
showed up at your door with a suitcase full of
designer clothes.” His strategy flopped.)
As promised, authorities did continue their
investigation the following Monday. Detective
Laurie-Ann Lefebvre visited the children’s school,
along with a child protection worker, to conduct
more interviews. Geeti said she wanted “immediate placement” in foster care. “I asked her:
‘What is going on?’ ” Lefebvre testified. “She
said she had no freedom. She said she wanted
to be like her friends and to be able to do things
without asking permission, to have friends and
to go out.”
Sahar complained about her brother’s iron fist—
she referred to him as “The Boss”—and said she
was only allowed to leave the house to go to school,
or if a relative was with her. “She was well dressed,
she had jewelry, and nice make up,” said Lefebvre, who asked Sahar how her parents could be so
strict, yet allow her to wear such westernized
clothes. “She said she would change at school in
the morning, and again before going home.”
When Lefebvre sat down with the third child,
the one who recanted, the story was the same.
“Nothing came out of it,” she told the jury.
Lefebvre also managed to speak to Zainab, tracking her down at the shelter through her boyfriend,
Ammar. “I asked her the reason she left the house,”
she said. “She told me the rules were too strict.
She couldn’t go where she wanted, she was being
supervised by the family, and if she wanted to go
out she had to be accompanied by a family member.” Zainab also confirmed that Hamed slapped
Sahar in the face.
Lefebvre concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to lay a criminal charge, and left the file in
the hands of the province’s youth protection services. Nothing more was done.
In the meantime, Shafia and Hamed were conducting their own investigation, visiting Cst. Choquette at the police station to see if she had any
leads on Zainab’s whereabouts. “Neither Hamed
nor Shafia was aggressive, but they were persistent,” says the agreed statement of facts. “They
wanted something to be done. They absolutely
wanted to find Zainab.”
Two weeks later, Zainab did return home, assured
by her mother that things would change. Two
months after that, her lifeless body would be
among the four pulled from the Rideau Canal.
The 911 call came from a stranger.
NOVEMBER 24, 2011
Could someone
have saved the
Shafia girls?
Before their alleged ‘honour killing,’ victims
repeatedly complained to police, teachers and
social workers
The “system” did not kill the Shafia sisters. If
prosecutors are correct, and their midnight drowning was in fact a mass execution, the girls perished
because their parents and their brother are “hon-
ourable” people. They are dead because they were
beautiful and bold and very much Canadian, a
combination that so disgraced the good Muslim
family that nothing short of their corpses could
reverse the shame. The “system” did not dump
them in the Rideau Canal.
But it didn’t exactly run to save them, either.
As a jury in Kingston, Ont., is now hearing,
detectives, teachers and child welfare authorities
knew full well that the Shafia home was a toxic pit
of abuse, fear and borderline enslavement. One
of the doomed sisters fled to a women’s shelter.
Another told a police officer, point blank, that her
dad threatened to kill them. Yet another tried to
do it herself, popping a pile of pills in a failed suicide attempt. “I want to die,” Sahar Shafia, then
16, told her vice-principal. “I’ve had enough and
I want to die.”
At last count, five different members of the “system” have provided evidence of what they saw in
the weeks and months before the girls died—and
what they did (or didn’t do) in response. Although
some of those witnesses fought back tears during
their testimony, not a single one expressed regret
or remorse. None of them said that if they had a
wish, it would be to go back in time and do something more.
They phoned the house. They convened meetings. They issued warnings. Twice, Quebec’s youth
protection apparatus launched an official investigation. And both times, the case was closed. Should
more have been done? Was someone negligent?
Lazy? Were they crippled by cultural correctness?
The answer, sadly, has become very clear during
the course of this sensational trial: sometimes the
“system” is simply no match for certain motivated
individuals, especially someone who honestly
believes that life behind bars is better than watching his teenage daughter hold a boy’s hand.
The jury has already been told, over and over,
that Zainab was the initial focus of her Afghan
father’s wrath. The eldest of the seven Shafia children, she immigrated to Canada with the rest of
the family in the summer of 2007—and immediately began bending the house rules. But in March
2008, after Hamed discovered her boyfriend hiding in their Montreal garage, Zainab was yanked
out of school and banished to her bedroom. For
nearly a year, she rarely left home.
On Wednesday, the jury learned that Zainab
was not the only female Shafia desperate for an
escape. In May 2008, while her older sister was
essentially a prisoner, Sahar told a teacher about
the hell that was her home life. She said she was
forced to wear a hijab, the Muslim head covering,
and that her older brother was abusive and controlling, once wheeling a pair of scissors at her
arm. She also said her parents barely spoke to her,
threatened to pull her out of school, and didn’t
care at all that she tried to kill herself just ten days
earlier. (Rona, the wife who died with the girls,
confirmed the latter in her diary, recalling Tooba’s
response to her daughter’s suicide attempt: “She
can go to hell. Let her kill herself.”)
Concerned, Sahar’s teacher approached the
school vice-principal, who in turn contacted
Batshaw Youth and Family Centres, the province’s
Anglophone child protection agency. “Sahar was
in my office, as well as the teacher, when I made
the call,” said the V.P., Josée Fortin. When she
recalled for the jury how she handed the telephone
to Sahar, Fortin had to stop and compose herself,
taking a long drink of water.
Batshaw classified the complaint as a “Code 1,”
dispatching a social worker the very same day. But
when that worker arrived, Sahar immediately
backtracked. “This change of attitude surprised
me,” Fortin testified. “I wondered to myself: ‘Do
I have before me a child who is afraid?’”
Jeanne Rowe, the Batshaw worker who met
Sahar, said the young teen “cried profusely” during the entire half-hour meeting. “She didn’t
want to give me any information,” Rowe said.
“She just denied everything. She said: ‘It’s not
true, it’s not true.’ She was very, very scared of
her parents knowing about the report. She didn’t
explain why, she just said she wanted to go home
and be with her family.”
By law, however, Batshaw is obligated to inform
a parent of any complaint filed
against them (although the
source of the information
always remains confidential).
Tooba arrived at the school
first, with Zainab in tow. She
denied every allegation, insisting that Hamed was not violent
and that Sahar was free to pursue her education
for as long as she liked. “The mother was not aware
that Sahar had taken any pills in an attempt commit suicide,” Rowe continued.
“Did she express any concern about that?” asked
Laurie Lacelle, one of the prosecutors.
“She did not.”
Zainab—fresh into her own punishment for
being caught with her boyfriend—was also questioned. She, too, said Hamed was not abusive, and
that “sometimes Sahar wanted to keep to herself
and not talk to anybody.” Zainab also confirmed
that mom and dad wanted both her and her sister to wear the hijab, which was “one of the things
that made Sahar sad.”
Shafia walked into the school—with Hamed—
shortly after that. “The father was quite angry,
and he wanted to know the source of the report,”
Rowe said. “I told him I could not give him the
source, and he said he would speak to his lawyer
because the report was nothing but lies.” Hamed
agreed with his father, Rowe said, but he did concede that Sahar was upset about having to wear
the hijab. “He said he didn’t understand why it
was a problem because she knew it was part of
their custom.”
Rowe phoned her boss and provided an update:
five witnesses, five denials—including one from
the complainant herself. They decided to let
Sahar go home, and two days later, Rowe followed up with another visit to the school. Unlike
the first time, Sahar was wearing her hijab. “She said things
were better and she wanted to
stay home,” Rowe told the
court. “You have to make an
assessment if the child is at
risk. This child was not at risk
at the time, she wanted to go
home, so we closed the case.”
Things, of course, were not “better” at home.
In fact, they were spiraling out of control.
By 2009, Geeti had joined Sahar in high school,
and both were skipping class and flunking courses,
triggering repeated phone calls from the office. At
the same time, the Shafias were dealing with a much
more pressing crisis: Zainab, reunited with her boyfriend, had run away. Hamed phoned 911—twice
in a matter of minutes—to report her missing, and
the resulting visit from police only shook out more
of the family’s skeletons. Sahar told the responding officer that Hamed slapped her, and that her
father hit Zainab “because he did not like her boyfriend.” Geeti said her dad “threatened that he was
going to kill them,” and like Sahar, wanted to leave
home “because there is a lot of violence.”
Montreal police launched an investigation, as
did the provincial child welfare agency. Again,
nothing came of it.
Sahar said her parents
barely spoke to her and
didn’t care at all that
she tried to kill herself
While Zainab was still missing, Shafia and Tooba
were summoned to the school for yet another
meeting, this one with Nathalie Laramée, a different vice-principal concerned about Sahar’s and
Geeti’s recent misbehaviour. “The father was really
in a state,” Laramée testified. “He was speaking
very loudly in my office. ‘What can we do! What
can we do!’” Sahar translated for her dad, from
French to Farsi.
When her parents left, Sahar told Laramée that
she didn’t relay most of what her father said because
he lied so much. “My sister and myself are afraid
in the house,” she said. “And we know that when
we are in school we have to be careful because our
behaviour is reported back to the home.”
Two weeks later, Laramée encountered a weeping Geeti in the hallway. Again, the 13-year-old
talked about her desire to leave home, and how
she and Sahar were planning to run away. In court,
Laramée held back her own tears while recalling
the encounter. “What can I do?” she said, repeating her words from that day. “How can I go about
helping this family?”
Over the last few weeks of the school year, Geeti
barely showed up. Once, when she did attend, Laramée sent her home to change out of a “low-cut
sweater.” In the middle of June, Geeti’s parents
received yet another letter from the school, detailing her truancy: 40 absences, 30 late arrivals. Her
report card was even worse; she failed all four
courses, including a dismal 28 per cent in math.
Days later, Geeti and her sisters would be pulled
from the canal, their lifeless bodies laid out and
photographed.
Inside the car, floating among the dead, was
Sahar’s cell phone, rammed with its own photos
of the family’s Niagara Falls vacation—a trip that
ended on the same day they died. In one shot,
Geeti is holding a puppy. In another, Sahar is pos-
ing in front a hotel mirror, smirking in her bikini.
Zainab’s smiling face fills another.
Did they suspect that something terrible was
about to happen? Was there an inkling, even the
slightest, that they might not make it home?
Should someone else—a teacher, a cop, a social
worker—have seen it coming?
NOVEMBER 26, 2011
Before honour,
reconnaissance
At the Shafia murder trial, cellphone records
reveal some disturbing detours during a
family ‘vacation’
The cellphone photos appear to chronicle a
typical family vacation: smiling faces on a hotel
bed, a teenager in a bikini, the CN Tower. But the
cellphone records—analyzed by police after four
of those vacationers were found in an underwater
car—suggest something far more sinister: an
intense, week-long reconnaissance mission in
search of the perfect murder scene.
It was June 2009, and the polygamous Shafias
(husband, two wives, and seven children) were piled
into a pair of cars for a road trip to Niagara Falls.
On Friday, a Kingston detective provided the
jury with some of the most chilling evidence yet:
the family’s final movements as a unit of ten,
plotted and mapped according to where certain
cell phones were at each given moment. On two
separate occasions, Hamed’s handheld was hours
away from the rest of the family, including one
suspicious visit to the Kingston area, where the
girls would later perish. The records also reveal
that on the way to the Falls, the family spent
nearly an hour stopped near a cellphone tower
on Station Road—a tower in plain sight of the
Kingston Mills Locks.
Sadly, the data also provided the jury with more
proof of Sahar’s heartbreaking plight in the weeks
before her death. As court has already heard, the
17-year-old told a social worker just days prior to
the vacation that she wanted to find a job and move
out of the house—and take Geeti with her. During
the trip, she was incessantly texting friends back
home, and sneaking in long conversations with a
boy whom she was desperate to keep secret from
her parents. (His name is protected by a publication ban.)
In the four days after Sahar
splashed into the water, that boy
frantically tried to reach her on
her cell, calling the number 22
times. Each attempt was forwarded to voicemail.
Because cellphone signals bounce off the closest tower, police can retrace a person’s steps up
to the second. After the corpses were discovered,
Kingston investigators asked officials at Rogers
to provide hundreds of pages of data from all the
family phones. Within days, they had the results.
Things start to get interesting on June 20, 2009,
just ten days before the foursome drowned. In the
morning (according to a separate computer audit
completed after the arrests) someone uses Hamed’s
laptop to conduct a Googe search: “where to commit a murder.” Later that same day, at 12:42 p.m.,
his cell phone is in Grand-Remous, Que., 270 km
from his St.-Leonard neighbourhood. The incoming call is from his house. That night, Hamed’s
cell returns to Montreal.
On June 22, Shafia pays $5,000 for a used Nissan Sentra, the same one that will plunge into the
locks. The day after that, the family departs, leav-
ing town in a caravan of two vehicles: the Sentra,
and a silver Lexus SUV.
They don’t, however, head straight for Niagara
Falls. They kick off the trip with a scenic detour—
right through Grand-Remous, the region that
Hamed visited the same day his laptop was churning out Google hits for “where to commit a murder.” The family spends the night at a local hotel,
then departs for Ottawa the next morning. Looking at the map prepared by Det. Steve Koopman,
their bizarre route from Montreal to Ottawa
resembles a horseshoe.
Barreling westbound through
Brockville, Gananoque and into
Kingston, Sahar’s phone is in
constant texting mode, the towers changing as the cars drive
by. According to Det. Koopman’s report, her phone then
spends a “disproportionate
amount of time” utilizing the tower on Station Rd.,
the closest one to Kingston Mills. Clearly, the family has pulled over.
A few hours later, the caravan arrives in Niagara
Falls, Sahar still texting as they pass through Trenton, Toronto and Hamilton.
Over the next four days, Sahar’s phone does
not leave the Niagara region—but Hamed’s does.
“This one is, to us, the most interesting,” Koopman testified.
On June 27, at 8:24 p.m., Hamed’s phone receives
a call that bounces off the Westbrook tower, just
16 km from Kingston Mills. Why, when the entire
family is still in the Falls, would Hamed (or someone carrying his cell phone) take a four-hour drive
back to Kingston?
The call, by the way, came from Sahar’s cell
phone. It’s not clear whether she was on the other
end of the line, or someone else in the family. But
Whoever dialed Hamed’s
number unknowingly
provided police with
a crucial clue
whoever dialed Hamed’s number, they unknowingly provided police with a crucial clue. Without
that call, the June 27 trip back to Kingston would
have remained a secret.
Sahar, it seems, took advantage of her brother’s
absence, talking to her boyfriend for the first time
since leaving Montreal. They had four different
conversations over the next 14 hours, each one
lasting an average of 37 minutes and 20 seconds.
The last occurred on June 28 at 10:50 a.m. They
would never speak to each other again.
Hamed’s phone is back in the Falls the same
day, and that is where it stays until the following
evening—June 29—when the family begins its journey back home. Sahar, as always, is thumbing
messages. 7:59 p.m., 8:03 p.m., 8:07 p.m., 8:10
p.m., 8:26 p.m…
They take a detour through downtown Toronto,
Sahar snapping photos of the CN Tower and the
Rogers Centre as the car drives past. At 10:54
p.m., while stopped at a McDonald’s near Oshawa,
Sahar has a 36-minute conversation with a friend,
hanging up at 11:25 p.m. Thirty minutes later,
when that same friend phones back, nobody
picks up. Over the next two hours, every incoming call and text message goes unanswered. The
last text arrived at 1:36 a.m. on June 30, 2009,
bouncing off the Station Rd. tower overlooking
the Kingston Mills Locks.
Investigators would find shattered pieces of the
Lexus’ left headlight at the scene, and prosecutors
allege that the SUV was used to ram the Nissan
over the lip and into the water.
At 7:53 a.m., the bodies still undiscovered, Hamed
makes another phone call—to police in Montreal.
After driving back home through the early morning darkness, he wants to report a single car accident at an empty parking lot. The responding officer finds the Lexus smashed into a yellow pole, an
apparent attempt, prosecutors believe, to cover up
the damage sustained at the locks.
An hour later, Hamed dials Sahar’s cell number
two separate times. Both calls are forwarded to
voicemail. At 11:26 a.m., his parents phone him
from their Kingston motel. By then, he is just a
few minutes away, having driven back in the family’s Pontiac mini-van so they can go to the Kingston police station and report the girls missing.
Over the next three weeks—as what appeared
to be a tragic accident turned into a homicide
investigation—Hamed exchanged almost daily
phone calls with Det. Koopman, the same man
who would piece together the family’s cell records.
The survivors had lots of questions: Which seats
were the victims sitting in? Was one of the doors
open? When will we get the Lexus back? Koopman was also among the officers who attended
the funeral—which was interrupted by an ambulance visit after Shafia complained of chest pains.
“His father had had a small heart attack, and they
were concerned that he had trouble breathing,”
Koopman told the jury. He recovered.
In another conversation, Koopman told Hamed
how difficult it was to watch one of his other siblings crying at ceremony. “[The child] had just
said multiple times, crying over and over again:
Geeti! Geeti! Geeti!” Koopman told the jury.
Laurie Lacelle, one of the prosecutors, asked
Koopman how Hamed responded. “Yeah, yeah,”
he said. “Just a kid.”
Two weeks after the funerals, father, mother
and son were behind bars. The inspector who
interviewed Mohammad Shafia showed him his
daughter’s cell phone records, and the secret story
they told. Shafia was outraged—that his daughter
couldn’t stop texting. “Four hundred dollars, three
hundred dollars, the bill was coming,” he told the
interrogator. “I said I couldn’t pay it.”
WEEK SIX
The bodies, a boyfriend and
the Crown’s final witness
JUSTICE
AN ANCIENT,
TWISTED CODE
In his final hours as a free man—unaware that
wiretaps were recording his every word—Mohammad Shafia stuck to a familiar theme.
“We lost our honour.”
“I don’t accept this dishonour.”
‘Dishonour’: Sahar and her boyfriend, Ricardo—a
“Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows,
relationship that angered her family and allegedly
nothing is more dear to me than my honour.”
sealed her fate
“Isn’t that right, my son?”
During her stint on the witness stand, Shahrzad killing. “The mere perception that a woman has
Mojab didn’t discuss those specific conversations. dishonoured her family is sufficient to warrant an
In fact, she didn’t once mention the shackled
attack on her life.”
THE
trio sitting in the courtroom prisoners’ box:
More than two years have passed since
HONOUR Shafia’s three daughters (Zainab, 19;
Shafia, his wife, Tooba Yahya, and their
eldest son, Hamed. But in a case that is all KILLING TRIAL Sahar, 17; and Geeti, 13) were found at
about culture and tradition and the fragilthe bottom of the Rideau Canal, floatWEEK
6
ity of a family’s reputation, Mojab’s expert
ing inside a sunken car with Rona Amir
testimony could prove most damning for the
Mohammad, their father’s first wife in the polygaccused. Few have spent more time studying the amous Afghan clan. Over the past six weeks, prosone word that Shafia couldn’t stop saying—the one ecutors in Kingston, Ont., have laid out their
word that allegedly justified a mass execution.
chilling theory for the jury, alleging that mother,
“Honour, and its translation in different societ- father and brother plotted to drown the immiies, has brought about many forms of violence grant sisters because their increasingly westernagainst women,” said Mojab, a University of ized behaviour—makeup, revealing clothes, secret
Toronto gender studies professor who has authored boyfriends—had so disgraced the family name
dozens of papers, and one book, about honour that only death could reverse the shame. (Rona,
CROWN EXHIBIT
The Shafia trial isn’t
about religion, but who
controls a woman’s body
it appears, was a throw-in, the victim of a years- to convince many prominent Muslims to speak
long rivalry with her fellow wife.)
out. In a joint statement, dozens of organizations,
But it was Mojab, the Crown’s final witness, who imams and activists from across the country
provided a crucial history lesson on this ancient denounced domestic violence—and honour killing
honour code: how it works, who makes the rules, in particular—as a violation of “clear and non-negoand how even the slightest infraction, real or imag- tiable Islamic principles.”
ined, can trigger bloodshed. For Canadians transFor Canadians glued to this case, such unequivofixed by this twisted trial, including those who packed cal words are a welcome message. It was Shafia, not
the gallery for Mojab’s appearance, her evidence was nothing
short of a wake-up call. “Honour killing is on the rise, and
has transgressed the borders of
the regions where it usually takes
place,” she testified. “It is all
about the control of women’s
bodies, women’s behaviour and
women’s sexuality.”
But is it a Muslim phenomenon? Not necessarily.
During those intercepted
Wake-up call: Mojab says honour killings are on the rise
conversations, Shafia proclaimed that “God punished” his daughters because the media, who dragged Islam into court, and it’s
they were “whores” who “betrayed Islam.” But up to fellow Muslims to explain if, and how, he had
Mojab told the jury, more than once, that the con- it all wrong. Unfortunately, it will take much more
cept of honour “definitely predates religion” and than a press release and a united message from the
“doesn’t have any connection to religion at all.” mosque pulpit.
Although some Muslims have certainly invoked
As Mojab told the jury, there are immigrants in
the Quran as justification for honour killing, she Canada not named Shafia who subscribe to the
said the crime is not exclusive to Islam. “We see same unwritten honour code that allegedly killed
it among Hindus, and we see it among Jews and Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona. “The hope is that
Christians,” she testified. “It is not being sanc- the more advocacy, the more education, and the
tioned by Islam.”
more public outrage we see against this form of
It is sanctioned, she said, by patriarchal cul- violence, the more it will make those who want to
tures that equate family honour with the obedi- commit this type of violence to think twice,” she
ence of its females. Misogyny, not divinity, is the said. “Is it happening with the pace we’d like to see?
common denominator.
I think we have a long way to go.”
Still, the evidence disclosed so far, including ShaThe outcome of this trial could be the biggest
fia’s tape-recorded rants, has been shocking enough step yet.
P HOTOGRAPH BY VINCENZO D’ALTO
This much is not in dispute: extensive toxicology tests conducted on all four victims came back
negative for a wide range of incapacitating substances, from alcohol to carbon monoxide to cyanide. Milroy also confirmed drowning as the official cause of death. However, the Ottawa-based
At the ‘honour killing’ trial, autopsy photos
pathologist could not say with scientific certainty
reveal crucial clues
whether the women actually died at the Kingston
Mills Locks, or drowned somewhere else before
Zainab Shafia was found in the front passen- being dumped in the canal. “The pathology is
ger seat, her fingernails painted a light shade of neutral on that scenario,” he testified. “I’m not
blue. She was 19 years old and had 10 cents in able to determine, from a pathology point of view,
her pocket. Her younger sister, Sahar (purple whether they drowned somewhere else and then
fingernails; black toe nails), was in the seat directly went into the water.”
behind her, a sleeveless top covering her pierced
The bruises certainly suggest the latter.
belly button. Thirteen-year-old Geeti, the youngGerard Laarhuis, one of two prosecutors workest of the dead Shafia girls, was floating over
ing the case, warned the packed courtroom
THE
the driver’s seat, dressed in knee-length
about the nature of the photos he was
HONOUR about to display. By then, Yahya had
jeans and a brown shirt. Like Sahar, the
big sister she idolized, Geeti had a stud KILLING TRIAL already been escorted out of the prisonthrough her belly button.
ers’ box, the sight of her deceased daughWEEK 6
Rona Amir Mohammad—the girls’ “stepters too much to bear.
mother” in their dad’s polygamous, patriarchal
Rona was the first to flash on the big-screen teleworld—was the fourth relative discovered at the visions, her corpse still dressed in the jeans and blue
bottom of the Rideau Canal. Pulled from the back top she was wearing three days earlier, when the
seat of the sunken Nissan Sentra, she was wearing family left their Niagara Falls “vacation” for the
six yellow bangles on her left wrist and three pairs drive home to Montreal. As is typical during autopof earrings. Dr. Christopher Milroy, the forensic sies, the skin on her head was peeled back to allow
pathologist who examined Rona’s lifeless body, a closer look at the bruising. “It is not a severe fracnoticed something else: two “fresh bruises” on the ture, but neither is it minor,” Milroy said, using the
crown of her head, a total of 6 cm in diameter.
arrow of a mouse to pinpoint the injury. “It was a
A close-up of those bruises was shown to a Kings- firm impact.” When asked if such a blow could have
ton, Ont., courtroom on Monday—part of a graphic knocked her unconscious, Milroy said it’s imposslideshow of autopsy photos that could prove cru- sible to know for sure. “I can’t tell you what the likecial to the jury’s eventual verdict. As Dr. Milroy lihood is, but I can tell you that any blow to the head
explained, Zainab and Geeti suffered nearly iden- can certainly render somebody unconscious.”
tical skull injuries, albeit smaller. “It clearly requires
Zainab appeared next, wearing tight black jeans,
explanation,” he testified. “It is unusual that all a red shirt and cardigan sweater—which, for reasons
three would have similar injuries.”
unknown, was on backwards. She had two bruises:
NOVEMBER 29 , 2011
‘I want God to
finish my life’
one on her scalp, a diameter of 1.5 cm, and another
on the right side of the crown, slightly smaller. In
the bulletproof prisoners’ box, their ankles shackled, father and son could barely look at the screen.
At times, they wiped their eyes with Kleenex.
The bruises on Geeti’s scalp were smaller than
Rona’s but larger than Zainab’s. It is likely, Milroy
said, that they were caused by a single impact of
some kind. In his accompanying report, he
described Geeti as “a well-nourished and well
developed adolescent female.” She had 19 cents
in her pocket.
Sahar, 17 when she perished, was not included
among the post-mortem photos; of the four, she
was the only one not bruised or scarred, at least
not physically. Like the others, her hands and feet
were wrinkled from hours in the water, and her
stomach was full of potatoes, likely French fries.
The vacationers had stopped at a McDonald’s just
hours before they died.
Although police never found another crime
scene, prosecutors obviously believe that the victims were either dead or unconscious before plunging into the water. None of them was wearing a
seatbelt, and although the driver’s side window
was wide open, nobody managed to escape.
“Were each of them fit, healthy, and able bodied?” Laarhuis asked Milroy.
“Yes.”
“What would happen if a sleeping person went
into the water?”
“They would wake up,” Milroy said. “They would
wake up immediately.”
During cross-examination, Shafia’s lawyer asked
Milroy if it’s possible that the women bumped
their heads on the rear windshield as the car fell
into the water. (“I don’t know if it’s most likely,”
he said. “But it’s certainly a possibility.”) Peter
Kemp also asked the doctor, who has conducted
nearly 5,000 autopsies in his career, how long it
would take to drown someone by holding their
head under water.
“It would probably take two or three minutes,”
he said. “But it could take as long as ten.”
“So to drown each one individually could take
up to 40 minutes?” Kemp asked.
“It could be less than that,” Milroy answered.
Forensics aside, the jury also heard Monday
from yet another witness who claimed that Mohammad Shafia was threatening murder in the weeks
before half his family turned up dead. A relative,
whose identity is protected by a temporary publication ban, said Rona herself overheard Shafia,
Yahya and Hamed whispering about a plot to kill
her and Zainab. It was April 2009, and Zainab,
the eldest of the children, had just run away from
home and taken refuge in a women’s shelter.
“Shafia was really upset, he was angry,” said the
relative, quoting one of her many phone conversations with Rona. “He said: ‘If she doesn’t return
back, I will kill her, because she dishonoured me.’”
The witness said one of the other accused (either
Tooba or Hamed; she can’t recall) asked Shafia:
“What about the other one?”
“Shafia said: ‘I will kill the other one, too,’” the
witness said. “Rona said: ‘It must have been me.’”
Rona was Shafia’s first bride, and as the jury is
well aware, she was unable to bear children. After
a decade of failed fertility treatments, Shafia married a second wife: Yahya, 17 year his junior. Together,
they had seven children—and Rona helped raise
them. “Shafia said to Rona: ‘I want to keep you.
Stay with me. If I can get children, that will be good
for you because they can support you,’” the witness
said. “He, himself, he didn’t like two wives. But he
said he had to in order to have children.”
The family left Afghanistan for Dubai in 1992,
and then immigrated to Canada in the summer
of 2007. (Rona joined them a few month’s later
on a visitor’s visa; Shafia told immigration authorities that she was his cousin, and they believed
him.) But once in Canada, the witness said, Rona
was ostracized and ignored. Shafia gave her a $50
monthly allowance, she said, and Tooba instructed
the children not to speak to her. “She was crying,”
said the witness. “She was saying: ‘I am fed up
with my life and I want God to finish my life. I
want to be in an accident.’”
After Rona told her about the death threat, the
witness said she urged her to go to police. Petrified, Rona refused. “She was shivering,” said the
woman, who travelled thousands of kilometers to
testify. “She was afraid. I told her: ‘Don’t be afraid.
This is not Afghanistan. This is not Dubai. This is
Canada. You don’t have any problem. Don’t be
afraid. Nothing will happen.’ ”
She last spoke to Rona at the end of June 2009,
right before the family’s road trip to the Falls. Days
later, when Dr. Milroy completed his autopsy
report, he noted the ring on Rona’s left finger and
the watch on her other wrist. In his report, on
page eight, he wrote: “Non-pregnant.”
NOVEMBER 29, 2011
‘I love you with
all my heart’
In court, Mohammad Shafia endures the
sight of his daughter’s boyfriend—and the
love notes he sent
If the allegations prove true—if Mohammad
Shafia really did drown his own daughters because
they were “whores” with boyfriends—then Tuesday must have been an excruciating afternoon for
the accused “honour killer.” Sitting in the prisoners’ box, wife and son cuffed beside him, Shafia
could only stare in silence as one of those boyfriends told the jury just how much he loved
17-year-old Sahar. They kissed. They cuddled. They
fantasized about running away together. “It was
very serious,” he said of their four-month relationship. “We could get married, I was telling her. And
she was agreeing.”
The witness, who cannot be identified because
of a temporary publication ban, spent an emotional chunk of his testimony reading out some
of the text messages he typed to Sahar in the weeks
before she died. He spoke slowly, the paper in his
hands shaking.
“I love you with all my heart and I can’t love
anybody more beautiful than you because you
are like the air that I breathe every morning, the
sun that warms me up,” he wrote on May 26, 2009,
one month before his girlfriend was fished from
the Rideau Canal. “I want only you to be the owner
of my heart.”
On June 28—just one day before Sahar’s death—
the boy sent her a flurry of messages. At the time,
the Shafias were vacationing in Niagara Falls, a
family road trip that prosecutors now claim was
part of a “planned and premeditated” mass murder. “I just want to see you here with my own eyes,”
the witness said, reading from his page. “The sky
is beautiful and many beautiful things are here in
the world, but you are the only beautiful thing.”
More than once, the witness paused to compose
himself. “If I had the moon, the sun, the sky or
the sea or the stars at this moment, I would give
all of it to you, my love,” he continued, quoting
his next message. “The only thing that I have at
this time is my love and my heart and many kisses
to give you forever, my love.”
Sahar’s body was found in a sunken Nissan Sen-
tra at the bottom of the Kingston Mills Locks,
floating alongside two of her sisters—Zainab and
Sahar, 19 and 13—and their “stepmother,” Rona
Amir Mohammad, their dad’s first wife in the
polygamous household. They were discovered on
June 30, 2009. Over the next three days, Sahar’s
frantic boyfriend dialed her cell phone 22 times.
Each call was forwarded to voicemail.
According to prosecutors, what was staged to
look like a tragic car accident was in fact a coldblooded quadruple execution aimed at restoring
the Afghan family’s honour and reputation, supposedly tarnished by the girls’ Westernized, sexualized behaviour since immigrating to Canada
two years earlier. All three suspects—Shafia, 58; his second
wife, Tooba Yahya, 41; and
their 20-year-old son, Hamed
Shafia—have pleaded not guilty
to four counts each of firstdegree murder.
Before Sahar’s boyfriend took the stand, the
jury heard more details about “Auntie” Rona’s
lonely existence in Canada—and a possible motive
for her alleged murder.
A wealthy Afghan businessman who made his
fortune in Dubai, Shafia had two wives: Rona, his
first and infertile bride, and Tooba, 17 years his
junior and the mother of all seven children. When
the clan moved to Canada, where polygamy is
illegal, Shafia left Rona with relatives in France
while the others settled in Quebec. When she
finally did join them in November 2007, her visitor’s visa indicated that she was Shafia’s cousin.
Sabine Venturelli, a Montreal immigration lawyer, was able to extend Rona’s visa on two separate occasions, and she told the jury that an application for permanent residency had been filed on
her behalf. But after November 2008, neither
Rona nor Shafia followed up on the progress. He
paid her bill—in cash, like usual—but the application was essentially abandoned.
Laarhuis asked Venturelli what would have happened if the government discovered Shafia’s polygamous arrangement. “They would have withdrawn
residency for all the family,” she answered, citing
“false information.” (Venturelli also said that she
knew nothing about the true family dynamic until
after Rona died.)
The trial, now in its sixth week, has heard more
than enough disturbing evidence of Shafia’s disgust at his “treacherous” daughters. In one seething rant recorded by a police wiretap, he urged
the devil to “sh– on their
graves.” But the reason behind
Rona’s alleged slaying is not so
clear. Did Shafia fear that her
application to stay in Canada
would blow everyone else’s
cover? Might the immigration
department figure out that she wasn’t his cousin?
What is clear is that Rona’s short time in her
new country was pure hell, rife with abuse and
misery. Ostracized by Shafia and her fellow wife,
the 53-year-old spent hours wandering through
the parks of their St.-Leonard neighbourhood and
using pay phones to confide in family members
outside the country. “Most every time she called,
she would be crying,” said Fahima Vorgetts, a distant relative and Afghan women’s rights activist
who spoke to Rona twice a week during her last
year of life. “If we would talk for half an hour, she
would be crying the whole time.”
Vorgetts, who lives in Virginia, said she first
heard from Rona in the spring of 2008, after her
aunt by marriage (Rona’s sister) asked for her help.
During their covert conversations, Rona would
talk about how she wasn’t allowed to use the home
Sahar and her boyfriend
kissed, cuddled, and
fantasized about
running away together
More servant than wife: Rona’s short time in her
new country was pure hell, rife with abuse and misery
honourable” love story to the very people who
believed (allegedly) that it was a sin worthy of death.
Sahar’s older sister set them up. At the time, he
was taking French-language night classes at the
same school as Zainab. Over the next four months,
ending with her death, the star-crossed couple
met in secret, at lunch hour and after school. Sometimes, they would hang out with Zainab and her
boyfriend.
“Were you and Sahar affectionate with each
other—holding hands, hugging, kissing—in front
of Zainab?” Laarhuis asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “We would embrace. We
would kiss.”
But Sahar was desperate to keep their relation-
CROWN EXHIBIT
phone, how her husband kicked her and pulled
her hair, and how Yahya taunted her with threats.
“She would say: ‘You are not a wife, you are a slave,
you are a servant,’ ” Vorgetts testified. “Her husband would also humiliate her, and beat her up.”
Rona wanted to run away, Vorgetts said, but she
was too petrified to follow through. “She said if
she left the house and went to the police, her husband would kill her. She took it seriously because
her husband told her that he will kill her if she
leaves.” But death was not her only fear. Ironically,
Rona was worried about the same thing that supposedly triggered her murder: honour. “She was
afraid she would taint the family name,” Vorgetts
said. “A divorced woman is looked down upon in
the Afghan society, especially at that age, and she
didn’t want the family name to be tainted by her
actions. She was concerned about her own family’s reputation, and Shafia’s family.”
One of Rona’s sisters, Diba Masoomi, also urged
her to go to authorities—especially after Rona told
her that she overheard Shafia, Yahya and Hamed
whispering about a plan to kill Zainab and “the
other one.” Rona was certain they were referring
to her. “She was afraid,” said Masoomi, who flew
from France to testify. “I told her: ‘Don’t be afraid.
This is not Afghanistan. This is not Dubai. This is
Canada. You don’t have any problem. Don’t be
afraid. Nothing will happen.’ ”
On Tuesday, after defence lawyers finished their
cross-examination, Masoomi was too upset to
leave the witness stand. “I want nothing, I just
want justice,” she said, her voice growing louder.
“I came here and I ask from this place just to have
justice.” Even after Justice Robert Maranger ordered
her to step down, she continued. “I just want from
the government of Canada to have justice.”
But on this day, it was Sahar’s boyfriend who provided the closest thing to justice—detailing his “dis-
ship under wraps, for reasons she never really
explained, but really didn’t need to. “She was
scared of her family,” the boyfriend said. “Can
you imagine if her father had known?”
Once, while the couple was at a restaurant near
Sahar’s school, another of her siblings stormed
over, demanding to know what was going on. (The
sibling cannot be identified). Not only did the boy
tell the relative that he had just met Sahar—but
he kissed one of her friends to prove his story.
Afterwards, Sahar was not convinced it worked.
The jury has already heard that she was terrified
by the encounter, and worried about how her
father would react when he returned from a business trip to Dubai.
The family of ten left for Niagara Falls on June
23, 2009. “She said she was going to talk to her
parents about our relationship,” the boyfriend
testified. “I told her not to do it. When she came
back from Montreal it would be better for her to
do it then.”
“Do you know if she talked to her parents about
your relationship?” Laarhuis asked.
“I don’t,” he answered.
hand resting on her stomach. The backgrounds
change—parks, restaurants, sidewalks—but the
poses rarely do. Some of the shots show only
Sanchez, hat backwards.
Police found all the pictures, and dozens more,
stored on Sahar’s cell phone, recovered from the
same underwater car that contained all four dead
bodies. Weeks later, detectives armed with a
search warrant found printouts of those very
same shots inside the Shafias’ Montreal home.
Some were zipped into her brother’s suitcase,
packed for an overseas trip. Two, depicting only
her boyfriend, were stuffed in the centre console
of her father’s Lexus.
“Do you have any idea how these photos ended
up in a suitcase belonging to Hamed Shafia?”
Gerard Laarhuis, one of the prosecutors, asked
Sanchez.
“No,” he answered.
“Do you have any explanation as to how these
ended up in the Lexus owned by Mr. Shafia?”
he asked.
“No.”
The answer, of course, is self-evident: police
seized the phone as soon as it was fished from the
NOVEMBER 30, 2011
Rideau Canal, which means the photos found at
the house must have been developed before the
car plunged into the Kingston Mills Locks. As
hard as she tried to keep her romance a secret, it
appears that Sahar’s mom, dad and brother—now
charged with four counts each of first-degree murSahar Shafia was desperate to keep her
der—knew exactly what she was up to.
boyfriend a secret—but her alleged
On Wednesday, his second day in the witness
‘honour killers’ already knew
box, Sanchez provided the jury with more details
about his four-month relationship with Sahar,
In one photo, Sahar Shafia and Ricardo San- including the bruises he once noticed on her left
chez are cuddling on a living room chair, her arm leg and right arm. “I asked her what had happened
wrapped around his. In another, snapped out- to her,” he said, speaking through a Spanish interside, Sahar is smiling in a pair of sunglasses, his preter. “She said that she had hit herself, that she
‘I would be
a dead woman’
had fallen at school. I said it didn’t look like a
bruise from a fall.”
“What did it look like to you?” Laarhuis asked.
“It looked like a blow, like when somebody hits
you,” he said. “I told her to tell me the truth. She
kept saying: ‘No, I fell, I fell.’ ”
Now 23, Sanchez was a newly arrived immigrant
from Honduras when Zainab, a classmate, introduced him to her younger sister. They could barely
communicate (his French was not much stronger
than hers), but Sanchez says he and Sahar immediately fell in love. Their plan, he testified, was to
run away from her family and get married in his
home country.
During cross-examination, Yahya’s lawyer, David
Crowe, asked Sanchez how his parents would have
reacted to having a Muslim daughter-in-law.
“My parents’ reaction would have been a normal reaction,” he said. “Our religion, as Christians,
is not as strong as the Muslin religion. It is a religion that is normal. I know Christ, and I know
that my parents would not have asked her to convert to the Christian religion. Why would they?”
Throughout his testimony, Sanchez admitted
that he didn’t know specific details about Sahar’s
home life, other than her strict curfew (8 p.m.)
and her desire to hide him from her parents. But
Irma Medina, Sanchez’s aunt, said Sahar confided
in her on numerous occasions, explaining exactly
what life was like for a teenage Shafia girl. “She
told me that she would be a dead woman if her
parents learned that she was going out with Ricardo,”
Medina testified. “They would kill her.”
Once, Medina said, Sahar told her she was going
to admit the truth to her mom and dad. “She told
me she was going to be a dead woman if she talked
to her parents about her relationship with Ricardo,”
Medina said, repeating that line again and again.
“But she said she was going to do it because she
loved him, would love him until death.”
Also Wednesday, the jury heard from another
employee of “Batshaw Youth and Family Centres,”
Quebec’s Anglophone child protection agency. In
May 2008, almost a year before Sahar met Sanchez, her vice-principal filed a complaint on her
behalf. Evelyn Benayoun was the intake worker
who took the phone call that afternoon, and she
spoke to both the vice-principal and Sahar. Just
days earlier, Sahar had swallowed a handful of
pills in a failed suicide attempt.
“She said her home situation was psychologically unbearable,” Benayoun testified. “She couldn’t
take it anymore and that was the reason she wanted
to commit suicide.”
In her report, Benayoun documented Sahar’s
long list of complaints: Forced to wear the hijab.
Physical abuse at the hands of her brother. Emotional abandonment. “Her mother wasn’t talking
to her and none of her siblings were allowed to
speak to her,” she told the jury. “When I initially
asked what she wanted, she said: ‘I want my mother
to speak to me.’ ”
Benayoun was concerned enough to classify the
complaint as a “Code 1,” dispatching a worker to
the school the same day. “She told me she was
extremely scared, specifically because she wasn’t
allowed to share family information with outsiders,” Benayoun said. “She knew she was doing
that, and she was scared of the repercussions.”
As the jury has already heard, Sahar backtracked
as soon as the social worker arrived. Sobbing
uncontrollably, she said she just wanted to go
home and that everything she claimed over the
phone wasn’t true. Two days later, the social worker
met her again. Sahar was wearing a hijab and
insisting that “things were better.” She was 16.
Today—November 30—would have been Geeti’s
16th birthday.
WEEK SEVEN
Shafia on the stand—and a
son tries to save his family
Accused: When Shafia, accompanied here by his son Hamed, took the stand, his testimony was part tearful,
part ramble and all denial
JUSTICE
The hunt for the truth
Standing in the witness box, hand on the
the night one of those wives and three of
THE
Quran, Mohammad Shafia promised to
those children ended up at the bottom
HONOUR of the Rideau Canal).
“state the truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help me Allah.” And for a few KILLING TRIAL
Dressed in a beige sport coat, his face
minutes, at least, the accused “honour
freshly shaven, the 58-year-old continWEEK
7
killer” did exactly that. He told the jury
ued to lay out his version of reality: the
he was born in Kabul, Afghanistan (true), that
Shafias were a “liberal family.” He always gave
he is a very wealthy businessman (true), and that the kids as much money as they wanted, above
he had two wives and seven children (true, until and beyond their $100-per-month allowance.
On the witness stand at last, Mohammad Shafia stuck
to his version of what happened to his murdered daughters,
no matter how twisted and confused it seemed
God—“no one else”—determines when people
die. And although he offered plenty of fatherly
advice, his doomed daughters were free to choose
their own clothes, their own paths, and their own
husbands. “I didn’t interfere,” he said. “It was
their life.”
Then the questions turned to the wiretaps, those
now-infamous rants secretly recorded by police
in the days following the funerals.
“They were treacherous.”
“They betrayed Islam.”
“We lost our honour.”
“May the devil s--t on their graves!”
Peter Kemp, Shafia’s lawyer, asked his client
to provide some context. “What did you mean
by that?”
“To me, it means the devil would go out and
check with them in their graves,” he explained.
“If they have done a good thing, it would be good.
If they did bad, it will be up to God what to do.”
The truth, according to Mohammad Shafia:
“s--t” means “check,” and everyone—except him—
is full of it.
It’s been almost 2½ years since three of his
daughters (Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17; and Geeti, 13)
were discovered in an underwater car, floating
beside their “auntie,” Rona Amir Mohammad,
who was actually their dad’s first wife in the polygamous home. According to prosecutors in Kingston, Ont., what was staged to look like a tragic
wrong turn was in fact a mass murder motivated
by a demented sense of family “honour”—and
carried out, under the cover of darkness, by the
family’s senior leadership: Shafia, the girls’ own
father, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, their own mother,
and Hamed Shafia, their own brother.
In the weeks to come, a jury will decide whether
the plunge was an accident or an execution, and
the patriarch’s two days on the witness stand—part
Crime scene: The family Nissan, in which the bodies
of three of Shafia’s daughters and his first wife were
found floating, is pulled from the water
tearful, part ramble, all denial—is sure to be at the
heart of those deliberations. He is, after all, the
face of this sensational trial, the immigrant father
who ruled his house with fists and fear, and who
allegedly decided that his “filthy” daughters
deserved to die.
But as riveting as his testimony was for those
squeezed inside the courtroom, the arrival of the
next witness was even more dramatic: Shafia’s other
son, the one who isn’t shackled beside him in the
prisoners’ box.
To refresh, the accused husband and wife had
seven children in all: three dead, one charged,
ban. “The media has set up a completely different personality. All that isn’t true.”
Like all accused criminals, Shafia had every right
to remain silent while prosecutors try to prove
their case, and his decision to take the stand was
the riskiest of legal strategies. Calling his surviving son as a witness was almost as dangerous, considering his own sketchy relationship with the
truth. But faced with such damning evidence (the
Crown’s submission spanned six weeks and two
dozen witnesses), Shafia and his lawyer obviously
believed that his own words were the best hope
of raising even a shred of reasonable doubt in the
minds of jurors.
The truth? It didn’t go too well.
The wiretaps are accurate, Shafia admitted. His
daughters were lying, deceiving “whores” who
snuck around with boys and broke his heart. But
just Zainab and Sahar. Not Geeti. She just stole
things from Wal-Mart, among other “mischievous
habits.” And yes, he said, their behaviour was an
agonizing blow, and that’s why he cursed them so
viciously while police were eavesdropping. “My
and three survivors. Those
honour is important to me,”
who lived were removed from STAGED LIKE AN ACCIDENT, he conceded.
the family’s Montreal home
But mass murder? Purity
IT
WAS
ALLEGEDLY
A
the day before the arrests, and
through bloodshed? The
until his appearance in court, MASS MURDER MOTIVATED Quran would never condone
the other son had not laid eyes
BY A DEMENTED ‘CODE’ such a thing, he testified. “To
on his parents or his brother
kill someone, you can’t regain
since July 2009. Mom and dad sobbed at first your respect and honour,” Shafia told Laurie
sight of their little boy—15 when he was seized— Lacelle, the prosecutor who conducted his crossall grown up. He waved and nodded and flashed examination. “Respected lady, you should know
some nervous smiles.
that. In our religion, a person who kills his wife
And when the questions began, he sounded a or daughter, there is nothing more dishonourlot like the witness who preceded him. “When I able . . . How is it possible that someone would
read the newspaper articles about this case, it’s do that to their children, respected lady?”
like I don’t even know these people,” said the
“You might do it,” Lacelle shot back, “if you
son, whose identity is protected by a publication thought they were whores.”
CROWN EXHIBIT
Hour after hour, question after question, Lacelle
used Shafia’s own words as her primary weapon,
pecking away at nearly everything he has ever said
about June 30, 2009—both to police, and when
he thought only his wife and son were listening.
By the end, Shafia was wiping away tears. Her dissection was that devastating.
“Would it be fair to say that you believed your
daughters’ actions brought about their own deaths?”
Lacelle asked.
“Respected lady, that was an accident,” Shafia
answered.
“I will suggest that you believed your daughters
and Rona were treacherous and you were entitled
to kill them.”
“No.”
“You believed God punished your daughters,”
she continued.
“God knows what happened,” Shafia said. “I
don’t know at all about this.”
Speaking slowly, not once raising her voice,
Lacelle asked her suspect about the events of
June 20, 2009, just 10 days before the car splashed
into the water. As detectives discovered, someone using Hamed’s laptop typed “where to commit a murder” into Google that day—the very
same day that Hamed’s cellphone travelled to
Grand-Remous, Que., nearly 300 km north of
the family’s Montreal home. Three days after
that (June 23) the family of 10 embarked on a
CROWN EXHIBIT
Hidden life: A photo entered into evidence of 17-year-old Sahar, which sent Shafia into a rage
“vacation” to the same region.
“No,” Shafia said.
Pressed for an explanation, Shafia said the
The family arrived in Niagara Falls in the early
original plan was to take a summer road trip to morning hours of June 25, a Thursday. On SaturVancouver. But “because that was quite far,” they day, Hamed’s cellphone was four hours away—
decided to change course after one night and back in the Kingston area. Lacelle suggested, withhead to Niagara Falls instead. Shafia said he had out actually saying it, that a reconnaissance mission
no idea his son was in Grand-Remous just days was under way.
earlier—when his computer was churning out
Shafia insisted that he had Hamed’s cellphone
hits for murder scenes—and that his children had that day, and was on his way back to Montreal
a lovely time “playing” near the water while he because the contractor building his new house had
was “busy preparing barbecue
suddenly demanded a payment.
and kebab for them.”
But he didn’t actually make it
HOUR
AFTER
HOUR
The family caravan, split
all the way home. He claimed
THE PROSECUTOR
between a silver Lexus SUV
that he turned around—near
and a black Nissan Sentra, left
Kingston—because the kids
USED SHAFIA’S
for the Falls, via Ottawa, on
phoned and said they wanted
OWN WORDS AS HER
June 24. The nine-hour jourto leave, too. “They told me:
ney just so happened to
‘Daddy, come, and we will go
PRIMARY WEAPON
include a 40-minute bathroom
with you.’ ”
break at Kingston Mills, the exact same place
“So you turned right around to go back to get
where, six days later, the Nissan would become them?” Lacelle asked.
a coffin. (Police only know about the stop because
“Yes,” he said.
Sahar’s phone—in constant text mode with friends
So after driving 400 km, supposedly to pay an
back home, including her boyfriend—used a important bill back home, Shafia changed his mind
nearby cell tower between 8:36 p.m. and 9:16 and drove 400 km back to Niagara Falls. Because
p.m.) Shafia never told police about their suspi- the children asked him to.
cious pit stop.
“If the kids told you on the 27th they wanted to
“I’m going to suggest to you, sir, that if you leave, and you went straight back, why didn’t you
wanted police to investigate and know the truth, leave on June 28?” Lacelle asked. “Why the 29th?”
you would have mentioned that,” Lacelle said.
His voice growing louder, Shafia babbled on about
“Whatever I knew, whatever I remembered, I how it was all up to the kids.
told the police all of that,” Shafia answered, his
“In any event, sir, you did leave on the 29th,”
words translated from Dari to English.
Lacelle said. “And you decided to start an eight“If your daughters and Rona had been to that hour trip back to Montreal at 8 p.m.”
very site before, it might have helped the police
“Yes,” Shafia said. “That was the decision everyto figure out how they got there later,” Lacelle body made.”
continued. “You didn’t tell the police that you’d
“I’m going to suggest that you made that jourbeen there before because you knew it would ney at that hour because you wanted those kids
be suspicious?”
to be asleep by the time you got to Kingston.”
“It was not my decision,” he repeated. “It was to bed. A few minutes later, Zainab knocked on
the decision of the whole family.”
her mom’s door and asked for the keys, presum“I suggest that you wanted an excuse to stop in ably to get some clothes out of the Sentra. The
Kingston that would not seem suspicious to Rona next morning, she and the others were nowhere
and your daughters.”
to be found.
“No, none of those things was crossing my
What the trio has never been clear on is where
mind.” Everyone was exhausted,
he told her again, and everyone wanted to stop.
“So when you were looking
for a hotel, why didn’t you
take one of the earlier exits for
Kingston?” Lacelle asked. “You
would have seen signs on the
highway that directed you to
exits with hotels.”
“No, I didn’t see that.”
“You may have even seen the
hotel signs near the exits.”
“I might have been sleeping,” Shafia answered. “I was
not driving. It was Hamed who
was driving.” And besides, he
said, maybe all the hotel lights
were switched off.
They ended up taking the
exit closest to Kingston Mills
Road, just a few minutes from Shattered: The Lexus, minus the shards of glass police found at the site
where the girls died
the locks. What happened over
the next few hours is for the jury to sort out.
Yahya actually parked the Nissan while Shafia
All three suspects have told police various ver- and Hamed went looking for the motel. It was
sions of the same story: Yahya was behind the either on a “road” or the “highway” or somewheel of the Nissan, driving all four of the even- where “not far.”
tual victims, while Shafia was in the Lexus with
“I will suggest they were stopped in the parking
Hamed and the other surviving children. Yahya lot of the Locks,” Lacelle said.
was so tired and sick and dizzy that she pulled
“I told you, I don’t know specifically.”
over—somewhere—while the Lexus went looking
“You didn’t say the spot because you didn’t want
for a motel. When they found one, the Nissan police to know that you stopped in the very place
joined them in the parking lot and everyone went they found your daughters.”
CROWN EXHIBIT
Despite what so many others have said while
“Tooba came to the motel with you and Hamed sitting in the same chair, Shafia’s son insisted that
after you killed your family members,” Lacelle he lived in the perfect home: his father never hit
pressed.
him (except once, but “not hard”), the girls were
“Never, respected lady, would we allow ourselves “joyful” and free, and all those complaints to
to do that. Tooba is a mom. If Hamed hurt one police and child welfare authorities were fabriof his sisters she would be the first to complain.” cations meant to win sympathy from their teachThe next day, investigators combing the scene ers. Sahar swallowing a handful of pills? “I don’t
found pieces of Lexus headlight, allegedly shat- remember anything like that.” Geeti’s demands
tered while ramming the Sentra into the water. to be placed in foster care? “For attention, popThat same morning, Hamed was back in Mon- ularity, stuff like that.” Rona’s diary, which
treal, dialing 911 to report a
described the “torture” that
single car crash that he has
was her life? “She used to care
IN
THREE
WEEKS’
since admitted was staged.
a lot about living.”
TIME THE JURY WILL
(When confronted by detecAs for Zainab, the witness
tives, Hamed said he left the
firmly toed the family line: she
DECIDE WHETHER
rest of the family at the motel
was the rebel of the house, in
IT
WAS
AN
ACCIDENT
that night because he had “busilove with a “drunk” and prone
OR AN EXECUTION
ness” back home.)
to stealing her parents’ car keys,
The Nissan had five seats; the
even though she didn’t have a
Lexus fits eight. “Why would you let Hamed take licence. Most important to the defence, the
the Lexus when nine of your family members were younger brother also placed Zainab at the Kingsat a hotel in the middle of nowhere?”
ton motel that night—contrary to the Crown’s
“Maybe Hamed liked to drive the Lexus,” Sha- theory that she and the others were already dead
fia answered.
by check-in. (He said she woke him up and asked
“I’m going to suggest to you that you let Hamed to borrow his cellphone).
take the Lexus because it was damaged when you
And that damning Google search? The one about
killed your family members and you needed him “where to commit a murder”? Little brother said
to cover it up.”
that was probably him, too. For reasons that aren’t
exactly clear, he said he was contemplating killing
When Shafia’s son took the stand, his token himself back in June 2009 and was researching
response was even more defiant: “Absolutely not.” ways to do it. “I wasn’t familiar with the word suiNow 18 and living in someone else’s house, the cide or suicidal, and I thought murder was the
anonymous brother praised his mom and dad and same thing,” he told the jury. “After the deaths of
criticized the police (and the press) for getting the my sisters and Rona, rest in peace, I became more
facts so wrong. “My parents wouldn’t do this,” he familiar with the term because people told me it
said. “I lived with them for 16 years. I grew up with might have been a suicide attempt.”
them, and I know what they are capable of and
Some might say the same thing about allowing
what they aren’t capable of. It was an accident.”
Shafia and his unnamed son to take the stand.
and none had a reason to fear him. Despite what
so many others have said while sitting in the same
chair, Shafia insisted that he never told his daughters how to dress, was not violent or threatening,
and had absolutely nothing to do with their latenight plunge into the Kingston Mills Locks. “WhatOn the witness stand, accused ‘honour killer’
ever my children wanted—for their studies, for
Mohammad Shafia says he was the model father their entertainment—I would buy it for them,” he
said. “There were no restrictions.”
Like all accused criminals, 58-year-old MohamAll he asked for in return was one thing: no boymad Shafia has every right to remain silent while friends. Marriage was fine. A proper, traditional
prosecutors try to prove their case. But the immi- engagement was fine, even to a non-Muslim. But
grant businessman chose to testify in his own no boyfriends.
defence, adding yet another layer of drama to an
And that, Shafia claims, is what triggered all those
already sensational trial. The result was typical nasty words—“whore,” “filthy,” “treason”—caught
Shafia: part tearful, part feisty, all denial.
on the wiretaps. He was still angry, even after her
Truth be told, he sounded a lot like a man
death, that Zainab had a boyfriend. And he
THE
who is well aware of the evidence against
was even more furious at some photos he
HONOUR found of Sahar (after the “accident,” of
him, and has crafted a convenient story
KILLING TRIAL course) that showed her cuddling with her
to explain away each damning clue.
Three of Shafia’s beautiful daughters—
secret boyfriend. “I was not happy seeing
WEEK 7
Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17; and Geeti, 13—were
this picture,” he admitted. “I did not think
discovered at the bottom of the Kingston Mills of my children this way. They could have gotten
Locks on June 30, 2009, floating beside their “step- married; I wasn’t against that. But I didn’t expect
mother,” Rona Amir Mohammad, their dad’s first this. My children did a lot of cruelty to me.”
wife in the polygamous Muslim clan. The Crown
Yet in the same breath, Shafia said he forgave
claims that what appeared to be a freak car acci- Zainab for all that boyfriend stuff, recalling—in
dent was in fact a mass “honour kill” meant to tears—the day she came to his bedroom and apolrestore the family’s reputation, tarnished by the ogized. “She said: ‘Daddy, please forgive me,’ ” he
girls’ supposedly shameful behaviour since mov- said. “I said: ‘Don’t worry, I forgive you.’ I gave
ing to Canada in 2007. Zainab had run away from her $100 and kissed her face.” Two weeks later,
home and married against her parents’ wishes. she was dead.
Sahar had a secret boyfriend and, like Geeti, was
“Let’s assume there was no accident, and you
desperate to move out. And Rona, infertile and found the pictures of Sahar in July,” Kemp asked.
ostracized, had demanded a divorce.
“What would you have done?”
But Shafia, on the stand all day, painted himself
“I would have told her it was wrong, it was incoras the model father and husband: patient, liberal, rect,” Shafia said. “I would have asked Sahar: ‘What
quick with advice, and even quicker with hundred- are you doing, my child? Do you love him?’ I would
dollar bills. All the girls, he said, called him “Daddy,” have told her it was not correct, in our eyes, that
DECEMBER 8, 2011
‘My children did a lot
of cruelty to me’
he wasn’t Muslim, but if she wanted to marry him
it would have been her decision. At least I would
have discharged my own responsibilities. That
would have been her life. That would have been
up to my daughter.”
The “truth” kept coming.
Lacelle suggested that Rona was a mere “servant,” that the girls weren’t allowed to even go
outside without his approval, and that Zainab in
particular was damaging his “reputation” among
fellow Afghans. She also spent a lot of time ask-
ing Shafia about April 17, 2009, the day Zainab
ran away, and the day police and a child welfare
worker were dispatched to the house. Geeti told
the officers her father was abusive; Sahar, who had
already attempted suicide once before, said she
wanted to live somewhere that wasn’t so violent.
“I have never been violent toward my children,
toward my family,” Shafia said, his words translated from Farsi to English. “Every time I talk to
my children, I would call them my sweetheart and
my buddy.”
Father of 7: Shafia says he was patient, liberal, quick with advice, and even quicker with hundred dollar bills
“Were you told that Geeti and Sahar wanted to
leave the house?” Lacelle asked.
“They never told me that they want to leave
the house.”
“Were you told that Geeti and Sahar were afraid
of you?”
“I don’t know the reason of their fear,” he said.
“They might have been ashamed if they had done
something wrong, but I don’t have any reason
why they should be afraid of me.”
“It had to have been clear by the end of the night
that the children were making allegations against
you,” Lacelle said.
“Police at that time didn’t tell me if I was violent to the children. The discussion was just about Zainab,
who left the house. The problem was Zainab. The other
family members did not have
any problem. She left the house.
My other children didn’t have
any problem.”
Lacelle reminded Shafia that his daughter was
19 years old, not twelve. “She could have had her
own life if she wanted it.”
“She was not working, so she would not have
a good life,” he said. “I was not happy that my
daughter would go somewhere on welfare. My
wish was that she would continue her education,
find a job somewhere.”
After his arrest, Shafia told the interrogating
officer all about his children. They lied. Geeti was
a shoplifter. Zainab was always stealing the car
keys. “You wanted the inspector to know that your
children were liars and thieves and troublemakers,” Lacelle said.
“Yes, I was upset, respected lady,” Shafia conceded.
“You called them ‘filthy’ and ‘rotten,’” she said,
shifting back to the wiretaps.
“Indeed, what you are saying, respected lady, I
accept that. I’m telling you the truth, these bad
things—lying, stealing—are not acceptable to me.
I am a father and that is my responsibility.”
“So you thought Zainab and Sahar were filthy
and rotten because they had boyfriends, and that
Geeti was filthy and rotten because she stole?”
“That is completely true,” Shafia said. “I said
those things. I used to advise them in the best way.
I didn’t want to show them the wrong path.”
“You called them filthy and rotten on the day of
visiting the locks in Kingston, right?” she asked,
alluding to the July 18 visit with police.
“Yes,” Shafia said. “Respected lady, they didn’t kill
themselves alone. They killed
us too. Three of my children are
living in someone else’s house,
and three of us are in prisons.
It was not just four people killed.
It was ten people killed.”
Whores?
“Yes,” Shafia said. “They were doing bad things.
If they had chosen a proper way to marry, I would
have been happy. But I saw those pictures and I
was upset. My heart was bleeding.”
On the day Shafia was arrested, he rode to the
Kingston police station in the same car with his
son, both in the back seat. “We may not be able
to see [each other] again,” Hamed said.
“I commend you to God, my son,” his dad answered.
“You never once spoke that way about your dead
daughters, did you?” Lacelle asked. “You said:
‘May the devil sh– on their graves.”
“I said to Hamed: ‘We are innocent, and God
will help us.’”
“And your daughters weren’t innocent, were they?”
Shafia rambled on, yet again, about Zainab and
Sahar and how they would have destroyed their
lives with those boyfriends.
‘I have never been
violent to my children. I
call them sweetheart
and my buddy’
WEEK EIGHT
Tooba Yahya’s ‘truthful’
testimony
JUSTICE
The mother of all lies
If the story is true—if Zainab Shafia really did
ask for her mother’s car keys and embark on a
deadly joyride into the Rideau Canal—that latenight knock at the motel door was the last
THE
time Tooba Yahya saw her eldest child
HONOUR
alive. (The next time she laid eyes on her KILLING TRIAL
daughter, Zainab was zipped into a plasWEEK 8
tic body bag.) On the witness stand 2½ years
later, she managed to recall that final conversation without any trace of a tear. “After I gave the
keys to her, I changed my clothing, and without
washing my face or cleaning my teeth, I went to
sleep,” she testified. “I didn’t know anything else
until the next morning.”
Minutes later, Yahya’s lawyer asked about the
events of July 21, 2009, the day detectives searched
her Montreal home and Quebec social workers
seized three of her other children—for their own
safety. “I will never forget that,” she wailed, burying her face in a Kleenex. “I requested them not
to take my children because [the youngest] would
not last without me. They did not listen.” It took
more than a minute for Yahya to compose herself,
her sniffles filling the courtroom speakers.
When the questions turned to the morning
of her arrest, she was bawling yet again. “I saw
with my eyes that they handcuffed Hamed and
took my son away from me,” she cried. “To get
Hamed out of that torture, whatever I was able
to do I would have done it.”
In denial: Yahya stands accused of killing her daughters
LARS HAGBERG/CP; CROWN EXHIBIT
Tooba Yahya says she didn’t tell the truth about being
at the locks that night. Which story will the jury buy?
The jury will ultimately decide what to make infertile and outcast, was a convenient throw-in).
of Yahya’s words (and her selective tear ducts). Despite weeks of testimony to the contrary, Yahya
But the trend was difficult to ignore: sobs for the claimed that hers was an idyllic home, where two
three children placed in foster care. Sobs for the wives lived in harmony, the kids had all the money
son under arrest. The driest of eyes for the three they needed, and the girls were free to pick their
daughters fished from the Kingston Mills Locks. own outfits. She and Shafia preferred their daughPolice, of course, say Zainab
ters to wear hijabs, Yahya connever asked for the keys—
ceded, but they didn’t force
because she was already dead,
them. “It was their choice,”
rammed over the water’s edge
she said. “It wasn’t someone
in the same black car as two
else’s choice.”
of her younger sisters (Sahar,
Yahya, now 42, had an
17, and Geeti, 13) and her dad’s
answer for everything. Rona’s
other wife in the polygamous
personal diary, which accused
home, Rona Amir Mohamher of “scheming” to keep
mad. According to prosecuShafia all to herself? “She never
tors, what was staged to look
complained to me,” Yahya
like a freak accident was in
said. Sahar’s botched suicide
fact a mass “honour kill”
attempt? “She said that all the
orchestrated by the victims’
time: ‘I will kill myself.’ ” Those
closest relatives: Mohammad
tape-recorded conversations
Victim: Yahya testified that Rona (above)
Shafia, father and husband;
with Shafia, where he urges
never complained to her about her fears
Yahya, mother and fellow wife;
the devil “to s--t” on his daughand Hamed, brother and surrogate son.
ters’ graves because they “betrayed” both him
Following in her husband’s footsteps, Yahya and Islam? Common Farsi expressions, she said,
chose to testify in her own defence, a rare and used in Afghanistan every day. “I wouldn’t let
risky tactic for an accused facing four counts of even a thorn get into the feet of my children,”
first-degree murder. But for a woman who has she insisted.
already confessed to being at the locks that night—
Among the shackled trio, Yahya is the only one
“Never tell my husband that I have said this,” she who admitted to police that they were at the
begged the interrogating officer—facing the jury death scene that night; she said she fainted after
was her last chance to explain herself, her one the splash and didn’t remember anything else.
opportunity to plant that seed of reasonable doubt. But on the stand, she swore it was all a lie, another
And water it with some tears.
motherly attempt to protect one of her beloved
Hour after hour, Yahya denied every bit of the kids. “I thought: ‘Please don’t touch Hamed, he
prosecution’s theory: that the girls, new immi- is innocent,” Yahya explained. “I lied, and I did
grants to Canada, were executed because they that for Hamed. None of it was true.”
were “whores” with boyfriends who tarnished
When deliberations finally begin, members of the
the family’s good Muslim name (and that Rona, jury may say the same thing about her testimony.
LARS HAGBERG/CP; CROWN EXHIBIT
turned-coffin plunged into the canal—but only
her son, not mom and dad. “’Til now, I am upset
with Hamed and my heart is bleeding,” she testified. “He should have told me.”
And suddenly, for the first time since this trial
began back in October, the defence revealed its
At the Shafia trial, the defence strategy is
core strategy: blame Hamed. Not for quadruple
suddenly clear: Hamed was there that night,
murder, but for failing to tell anyone, including
not mom and dad
his grieving parents, that he personally witnessed
the “accident.”
During her three days (and counting) on the
Confused? So were many of the people packed
witness stand, Tooba Mohammad Yahya has repeat- inside the courtroom. Such is life (and death) in
edly told the jury about her husband’s annoying the Shafia world.
little “habit.” If something bothered him—if his
All three suspects—Mohammad Shafia, 59; Tooba,
children misbehaved, for example—he would talk 42; and Hamed, 21—are charged with jointly
and talk and talk. And then talk about it some orchestrating a mass “honour kill” meant to restore
more. “Most Afghani men have this habit,”
their family’s reputation, decimated by the
THE
she explained. “He used to repeat that
girls’ so-called “treacherous” behaviour
HONOUR (ie. wearing tight jeans and talking to
thing for months and years.”
Her cross-examination has been equally KILLING TRIAL boys). The trio’s alleged murder weapon
tedious. Accused, along with husband
was their silver Lexus SUV, used to ram
WEEK 8
and eldest son, of killing three of her own
the four female victims over the edge of the
beautiful daughters (and her fellow wife in a secretly Kingston Mills Locks. At the heart of the Crown’s
polygamous household), Tooba has unleashed her case are shattered bits of headlight found at the
man’s trademark “habit” on Crown prosecutor death scene, and hours of wiretap rants starring
Gerard Laarhuis. Even the simplest of questions— a very angry Mohammad Shafia. “My conscience
Were you angry after finding condoms in your is clear,” he said in one intercept. “They haven’t
house? How long did you stop at that particular done good and God punished them.”
McDonald’s? What day was the funeral?—has trigUnder police interrogation, father and son congered a rambling response about the teachings of ceded nothing, sticking to the same story they
the Koran or motherly love or how sick and for- told detectives on day one of the investigation:
getful she was on that fatal night 2½ years ago. At the girls took the keys to the Nissan Sentra and
one point, Tooba refused to concede that 500 embarked on a deadly, late-night joyride. But
meters is half-a-kilometre, because it was dark Tooba did eventually crack under questioning,
outside and math is not her strength.
confessing that all three were at the locks when
But on Wednesday afternoon, just minutes the car fell in. (“Never tell my husband that I have
before court adjourned for the night, Tooba said said this,” she begged the interrogating officer.)
something that could not have been more clear: The next morning—and on the witness stand this
her son was at the water’s edge when the car- week—she insisted it was all a lie, a desperate but
JANUARY 11, 2012
‘He should have
told us’
misguided attempt to save her
son from “torture.”
As always, the story isn’t over.
After reading news articles
about the arrests, an Afghanborn Queen’s University student contacted Shafia’s lawyer,
Peter Kemp, offering his services as a Dari translator.
Moosa Hadi was granted blanket access to all the disclosure
material—the wiretaps, the
forensic reports, the videotaped interrogations—and
before long, Shafia hired the
engineering student as a private eye, paying him $4,500
to “discover the truth.” By Vacation turned deadly: The murder weapon was their silver Lexus SUV,
used to ram the four female victims over the edge of the Kingston Mills Locks
November 2009, four months
after the women died, Hadi’s “investigation” took “I hit the back but not hard, just the glass was brohim straight to Hamed.
ken, the glass of Lexus car,” he said.
In a jailhouse interview, recorded on Hadi’s lapMoments later, while picking up the shards, he
top, the son offered a fresh version of events, the heard a splash and sprinted over. “At that moment,”
one his mother now seems to believe with all her he told Hadi, “I think one of the lights was showbleeding heart.
ing.” He grabbed a yellow rope from his trunk,
Stopped at a Kingston motel on the way home dangled it over the water and beeped his horn
from a Niagara Falls vacation, Hamed said he several times. When none of his sisters swam to
spotted his sisters—Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17; and Geeti, the surface, he did what any good brother would:
13—inside the Nissan with their “stepmother,” he climbed back into the SUV and headed straight
Rona Amir Mohammad, 52. Although none of home to Montreal.
the passengers had a license, Hamed says they
He never told his parents what happened, he said,
wanted to drive to a nearby gas station to buy and didn’t call police because he was afraid they
some phone cards, with Zainab behind the wheel. would “blame me” for allowing Zainab to drive
So he followed them in the Lexus, just to make without a license. “I was scared,” Hamed said. “I
sure they got back safely.
decided with myself not to say that I was with them.”
The pumps, though, were closed, and while
Back in Montreal, he staged a single-car accilooking for a suitable place to turn around, both dent in an empty parking lot, hoping to cover up
cars ended up near the locks. It was there, Hamed the damage sustained at the locks.
said, that he accidentally rear-ended the Sentra.
On the stand, Tooba said she didn’t hear about
Hamed’s dark secret until many months later, at
a preliminary court hearing. “He sees you grieving and crying and doesn’t tell you anything about
it?” Laarhuis asks.
“I don’t know why he didn’t say anything,” she
answered.
“When you’re at the funeral, he doesn’t say
anything?”
“No.”
“When they take the other kids out of your house,
he doesn’t say anything?”
“No.”
“When they arrested you, he doesn’t say
anything?”
“No.”
“When you’re in jail for four months, he doesn’t
say anything?”
“No.”
“So are you defending Hamed now for not having told you?”
“No.”
“But you’ll agree that the reason he didn’t call
rescue people, the reason he drove to Montreal
and staged another collision, a fake one, was to
avoid dealing with his dad?” Laarhuis asked.
“That was his account. You agree that the consequences would have been serious, even for Hamed,
as the oldest son, for not having told his dad
about Zainab driving.”
“He was frightened, not to be in trouble,” Tooba
said. “Hamed, for sure, would have been under
pressure because that would have been the death
of four people.”
“But it was the accidental death of four people,”
Laarhuis pointed out.
“If it was accidental, he should have told us,” he
said. “He should have come and told us everything clearly.”
In the courtroom prisoners’ box, ankles shack-
led, Hamed showed no emotion as his mother
“scolded” him. His father reached for a Kleenex
and patted his eyes, another habit he’s picked up
in recent weeks.
JANUARY 12, 2012
Tooba the truth teller
Accused of ‘honour’ killing three of her
daughters, mom insists she is finally
being honest
Tooba Mohammad Yahya wants the jury to
know the truth: she’s a liar. A very, very big one.
But not anymore. All those “lies” she blurted out
2½ years ago—especially that zinger about being
at the water’s edge with her husband and son when
half the family drowned to death—were the words
of a desperate woman trying to escape the “clutches”
of a police interrogator. She is being honest now,
and she wants the world to finally know what happened that night. Except, of course, those crucial
few details that she was too nauseous or feverish
or sleepy to remember.
“Yes, I was intentionally lying,” Tooba admitted,
when asked about that epic interrogation on the
night of her arrest. “I was under a lot of pressure
when I told him whatever I told him. It was all lies.”
Crown prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis, whose unenviable job is to keep track of all those lies, asked
Tooba to describe her current pressure level. “This
is your trial,” he said Thursday, her fourth day
(and counting) on the witness stand. “Is the pressure the same as it was then?”
“Yes, the pressure was the same,” she answered.
“But the date of the pressure differs. When you’re
under sleeplessness and you lose your children
and your son is handcuffed in front of you, the
pressure differs. The time differs.”
“The pressure is not causing you to tell a lie here
today, is it?” Laarhuis asked.
“No,” she said.
Honest.
In the witness box, Tooba told Laarhuis that
she was coughing and coping with a nasty fever
as the caravan of two cars barreled down Highway 401. At one point, she said, she switched
spots with Shafia (he went behind the wheel of
the Nissan; she took a nap in the front seat of
the Lexus, with Hamed driving). Then, at location unknown, she and Shafia swapped again,
putting her back in control of the Nissan as it
pulled off the exit toward the
motel. Again and again, Laarhuis pressed Tooba to remember where those two stops
occurred. She couldn’t. “I’m
putting to you that it has nothing to do with whether or not
you can recall,” he said. “You can recall, and
you’re choosing not to tell us.”
“Indeed, that is not the case,” Tooba answered,
rambling on some more about the “pressure”
she was under after her arrest. But when Laarhuis pointed out the obvious—If you can’t remember where you stopped, then it could have been
the Kingston Mills Locks—Tooba suddenly remembered some details. “No sir,” she said. “It was on
the side of the road, on the main street.”
At times, Laarhuis’s questions were predicated
on so many different lies that, truth be told, it was
difficult to keep them straight. For example:
The Shafias had been to the Kingston Mills
Locks numerous times before: twice during a
family road trip the previous summer (including
a full-blown picnic) and once on that journey
toward Niagara Falls, just five days before the
women died. On July 18, a little more than two
weeks after the “accident,” police invited father,
mother and son back to the scene to brief them
on the progress of the investigation—and to plant
a wiretap in their minivan. The cops told the trio
that they had found a camera near the locks (yet
another lie) and then listened to their reaction
as they drove back to Montreal.
“There was no camera over there,” Tooba said,
the recorders whirling. “I looked around, there
wasn’t any. If, God forbid, God forbid, there was
one in that little house, all three of us have come,
no?” She later added: “They’re just lying, they’re
trying to sound us out.”
During their testimony, both
Shafia and Tooba said they
weren’t worried about being
captured on tape the night the
girls died—but rather on those
other occasions they visited.
Why? Because they failed to tell
police they had visited the locks before, and were
concerned about being cast as liars.
Then why, Laarhuis asked Tooba, did you fail
to mention that concern after your arrest, when
RCMP Inspector Shahin Mehdizadeh showed you
a photo of the locks and specifically asked if you
had been there before? “That was just a meaningless thing for me,” she said. “I didn’t see that as a
criminal act. I was under a lot of pressure. I was
not in a position to say everything to him, bit by
bit.” Again, Laarhuis asked why she lied. “I was
not able to properly recognize that spot in the
condition I was in,” she answered. “A picture differs a lot from a place you see with your own eyes.”
Finished her explanation, Tooba took a drink of
water and glanced at the jury.
“You testified yesterday that the reason you
started to tell lies was that you wanted to get
‘You lose your children
and your son is
handcuffed in front of
you, the pressure differs’
Hamed free, you were worried he was going to be
tortured in jail,” Laarhuis said.
“I knew that I was not there and I didn’t know
anything,” she answered. “But because he put me
under pressure, I didn’t know what was going on
and I was afraid, and I made up that story.”
“You knew very well what you were saying to
him,” the prosecutor shot back. “And you were
very careful about what you were saying to him.”
“Plan A,” Laarhuis said, was to stick with the
“blame Zainab” story. And when that fell apart,
shift to Plan B: pin it all on Shafia. In fact, it was
Tooba—not the cop conducting the interrogation—who first mentioned,
after being shown the broken
headlight, that the Lexus
nudged the Nissan. (“The
important thing is to specify
the person,” she told Insp.
Mehdizadeh. “Who was that
person who hit it with the
other car, pushed it into the water?”)
“This concept, that the Lexus pushed the Nissan into the water, comes out of your mouth first,”
Laarhuis said. “[The officer] has never suggested
at this point that the Lexus pushed it in. All he
told you was that the broken headlight pieces are
near where the Nissan went in.”
“I don’t remember whether he said that to me
or not,” Tooba said.
“It is clear in this interview that you know exactly
what has happened at the scene. It is you who
first utters the words, who first puts it together
that it was the Lexus who pushed the Nissan into
the water.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Even if you tell that
to a kid, the broken headlights, they will know
there was an accident.”
“You accepted that was the truth, and you said
the important thing was to find out who was driving the Lexus.”
“That is right,” Tooba replied. “I said: ‘Tell me who
was there. Tell me who was driving the Lexus.’ ”
“This is another effort by you to divert the blame
from Hamed, who drove the Lexus all that night.
That’s why you’re saying it’s important to know
who was driving. You didn’t want to tell the officer
that it was Hamed who was driving. You are deflecting the blame and trying to blame Shafia.”
“No sir, it wasn’t like that. I asked him: ‘Just tell
me.’ ”
“What you want to do is shift it to Shafia.”
“No sir. When he told me
your car pieces are found close
to the water, I just wanted to
know what happened, too.”
Later in her post-arrest interrogation, Tooba told the inspector: “Believe it, Hamed in fact
didn’t do this.” When Mehdizadeh asked who was behind the wheel, she
answered: “His dad.”
“This isn’t random thoughts coming out of your
mind,” Laarhuis said. “This is very sustained and
very focused. You want to shift the blame from
Hamed to Shafia.”
“No, sir,” she said. “I was afraid, and I said it
wasn’t Hamed.”
“This is not about pressure,” he continued.
“This is about you saying: ‘It wasn’t Hamed. It
wasn’t me. It was Shafia.’ And you’re building
up to it right from the very start of your statement. You have already started pointing the finger at Shafia.”
“No sir. He told me that the car glass is there,
and that it pushed the car into the water. I told
him if you know about this information, then tell
me who did this to my daughters.”
‘You want to shift the
blame to Shafia. You
have already started
pointing the finger.’
WEEK NINE
How the crime was
committed
JUSTICE
A mother and son face the truth
The jury has heard so many conflicting narratives, such wildly different versions of the “truth,”
that the evidence sometimes resembles a reallife game of Clue. Shafia at the canal with
THE
the Lexus. Zainab at the motel with the
HONOUR
car keys. Tooba in the Nissan with the KILLING TRIAL
four corpses-to-be (and a nasty fever
WEEK 9
that caused her to conveniently faint as
soon as she heard the splash).
But this week—after three months in court, dozens of witnesses, and one epic round of crossexamination—two things became very apparent:
the prosecution’s complete theory of the crime,
as laid out in chilling detail by Crown attorney
Gerard Laarhuis; and the opposing storyline that
defence lawyers seem to have settled on.
Hamed—and only Hamed—at the water’s edge
with a rope. (To rescue the women, of course, not
to kill them.)
When deliberations do begin, there’d better be lots
of chart paper in the jury room.
The basic facts are not in dispute. On the morning of June 30, 2009, three of the Shafia sisters
(Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13) were found
in a watery grave, floating inside a sunken Nissan Sentra with their supposed “auntie,” Rona
Amir Mohammad, who was actually their dad’s
other wife in a secretly polygamous—and very
wealthy—Afghan clan. The family of 10, recent Odd couple: Yahya at her wedding to Shafia (centre),
immigrants to Canada, were on their way home while his first wife, Rona, tags along
CP; PREVIOUS SPREAD: REUTERS
Tooba Yahya banks on her son’s shaky alibi that
he was there when his sisters ‘accidentally’ died
to Montreal after a Niagara Falls vacation when hours of the morning, and for Yahya to wait with
the black sedan plunged into the Kingston Mills the doomed—seats reclined, everyone asleep—
locks. Investigators who combed the scene also while her accomplices went “looking” for a motel.
found shattered bits of headlight from the fam- “They would have no reason to expect anything
ily’s other car, a silver Lexus SUV.
bad would happen, right?” Laarhuis asked. “They
Beyond that, things get murky.
were with their mother, right?”
According to police, the women in the water
Shafia and Hamed dropped the other three chilwere victims of a mass execution orchestrated by dren at the motel, he continued, and rejoined Yahya
their closest relatives: Mohammad Shafia, father at the locks parking lot. “That was the end,” he said.
and husband, Tooba Yahya,
“You knew that you had to get
NONE OF THEM WERE
mother and fellow wife, and
out of that Nissan, and you ran
Hamed Shafia, brother and WEARING SEAT BELTS. THE to the Lexus.” One by one, the
surrogate son. Their alleged
victims were drowned (specific
WINDOW
WAS
WIDE
OPEN,
motive was to restore the famlocation unknown), stuffed back
YET NO ONE TRIED TO
ily’s “honour,” stained by the
inside the Nissan, and driven to
girls’ sexy outfits, secret boy- ESCAPE. THE CAR WAS IN the concrete lip of the canal.
friends, and otherwise typical
“Somebody reached through
FIRST
GEAR.
IGNITION
OFF.
teenage behaviour. Simply put
the open window and put the
(although nothing about this case is simple), the car from neutral into gear one, thinking on its own
sisters didn’t behave like good Muslim daughters power the Nissan would go into the water,” Laarshould, and their punishment was death. (Rona, huis went on. “What none of you expected—what
it’s alleged, was a convenient throw-in, the barren was not part of the plan—was that the Nissan would
first wife and borderline servant.)
get hung up.”
The jurors are well aware of each mysterious
“No, never,” Yahya replied.
detail. Three of the victims (except Sahar) had
“When the Nissan got hung up, there was an
bruises on their heads. Zainab’s sweater was on emergency: you had bodies inside the car hung
backwards. None of them were wearing seat belts. up on the edge of the canal,” Laarhuis said.
The driver’s side window was wide open, yet no “While figuring out what to do, one of you reached
one tried to escape. The car was in first gear. Igni- into the open window and turned off the ignition off. Front seats reclined all the way.
tion to kill the lights and kill the engine, to try
But not until this week, with mom still on the not to draw attention to this vehicle that was
stand, did the Crown reveal its full version of the hung up on the locks.” Frantic, one of the accused
puzzle. “You were there,” Laarhuis told Yahya. steered the Lexus to the Nissan and rammed the
“And you saw it.”
dead the rest of the way.
Speaking like prosecutors do, Laarhuis “sug“No sir,” Yahya insisted, tears flowing. “We are
gested” to Yahya that she knew full well Rona not murderers. We were a very sincere and coland the girls would not make it back to Montreal lected family. Don’t ever tell me that I killed my
alive. The plan, concocted with husband and children. Never!”
son, was to pass through Kingston in the wee
A few hours later, Hamed was all the way back
mom and dad. Just Hamed.
Like all things Shafia, some explanation is required.
A few months after the arrests, a Queen’s University engineering student named Moosa Hadi phoned
up one of the defence lawyers and offered his services as a Dari translator. A fellow Afghan, Hadi
was granted blanket access to all the disclosure
material—wiretaps, forensic reports, the videotaped
interrogations—and before long, Shafia hired him
as a private eye, paying Hadi $4,500 to “discover
the truth.” By November 2009, four months after
the women died, his “investigation” took him
straight to Hamed. In a tape-recorded jailhouse
interview, later submitted to
police, Hamed admitted the
“truth.” He said the whole family did make it to the motel,
and that he saw Zainab and the
others inside the Nissan, itching to drive to a nearby gas station to buy some phone cards.
Hamed advised against it, but
agreed to follow them in the
Lexus just to make sure they
made it back safely. “They are
scared at night,” he said.
The pumps were closed, he
continued, and while looking
for a good place to t u rn
around, they somehow ended
up near the locks. That’s when
he accidentally rear-ended the
Nissan, breaking the headlight. “I was upset, I called
them to come back,” Hamed
explained. “They said: ‘Okay,
we’ll make a turn.’ ”
While picking up the broken
Oh brother: Hamed said he was there when his sisters died
LARS HAGBERG/CP
in Montreal, phoning 911 to report a single-car
fender-bender in an empty parking lot. He was
in such a rush to stage that accident, Laarhuis
said, that he dropped his parents at the motel
and sped away with his mother’s purse, wallet
and the family’s suitcases still in the trunk.
Yahya told Laarhuis he was “imagining” things. But during her six days on the stand—in
between the sobs and the finger wagging and
the endless lessons on Afghan culture—Yahya
did agree with one thing the prosecutor said:
Hamed was there when the car went in. Not
pieces, Hamed said he heard a splash and sprinted
toward the water. Then he did what any good
brother would: he beeped his horn a couple of
times, dangled a rope in the water like a fisherman hoping for a bite, and left for Montreal. “I
was scared,” he said. Scared of his father’s reaction. Scared that the cops would blame him for
allowing Zainab to drive without a licence. “I
decided with myself not to say that I was with
them,” he continued. “I didn’t know what to say
to my mom and dad.”
When asked about her son’s supposedly gigantic
secret, Yahya told Laarhuis that she only heard
about it after their case reached court. “He sees you
grieving and crying and doesn’t tell you anything
about it?” he asked.
“I don’t know why he didn’t say anything,” she
answered.
“When you’re at the funeral, he doesn’t say
anything?”
“No.”
“When they take the other kids out of your house,
he doesn’t say anything?”
“No.”
“When they arrested you, he doesn’t say
anything?”
“No.”
“When you’re in jail for four months, he doesn’t
say anything?”
“No.”
“So are you defending Hamed now for not having told you?”
“No,” she said. “He should have told us. He should
have come and told us everything clearly.”
One thing is clear. Unlike mom and dad, Hamed
has decided not to testify, shielding his shaky alibi
from cross-examination and saving it for closing
arguments. Will it be enough to sway just one member of the jury? Or, like the story he clings to, will
there be no rescue?
THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO
Unhappy family: Yahya and Shafia (left), the day before their wedding, along with Rona (centre)
four women from the water: three Shafia sisters
(Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17; Geeti 13), and Rona Amir
Mohammad, the girls’ supposed “auntie” but in
fact their dad’s first wife in the secretly polygamous family.
Investigators working above ground also found
shattered bits of Lexus headlight, the smoking
At the ‘honour killing’ trial, an accused
gun that would lead them to their suspects: Mohammother is confronted with the prosecution’s
mad Shafia, father and husband; Yahya, mother
full version of events
and co-wife; and Hamed Shafia, brother and surrogate son.
Tooba Yahya steered the Nissan Sentra into
Nearly three years later, there are so many conan empty parking lot that night, knowing full well flicting storylines that Laarhuis deserves a convicthat everyone else inside the car—three daughters tion just for keeping them all straight. First the
and a fellow wife—were about to die. It was all part family told the cops that Zainab took the car keys
of the plan, concocted well in advance with hus- during a motel stop in Kingston (the Afghan famband and son: they would drop the younger
ily, wealthy new immigrants to Canada, were
THE
kids at a nearby motel, while Yahya waited
on their way home to Montreal after a
HONOUR Niagara Falls vacation). Then, after their
in the darkness with the corpses-to-be. If
she wrestled with any second thoughts, KILLING TRIAL arrests, Yahya admitted to her interrogaan urge to warn her girls about their
tor that all three were at the locks when
WEEK 9
impending execution, she fought it. The
the car went in, but that she fainted and
four passengers had no clue what was coming.
doesn’t remember anything else. And now, on
Such was the chilling scenario presented Friday the witness stand, she insists that everything she
by prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis, cross-examining said to Inspector Shahin Mehdizadeh was a lie, a
Yahya for a fourth consecutive day. After dozens desperate attempt to stop the questions and save
of witnesses and weeks of testimony, Laarhuis laid Hamed from some unspecified form of “cold water”
out the most detailed version yet of the Crown’s torture. As Yahya said yet again on Friday: “I was
theory: father and brother rejoined Yahya at the making up something. I was telling him someKingston Mills Locks, drowned the women (spe- thing that he should leave me alone.”
cific location unknown), stuffed their bodies back
But Laarhuis spent the day suggesting the oppoinside the Nissan, and nudged the car toward the site: that what Yahya said to the inspector was very,
water. But their master plan—to make it look like very truthful. “You were giving details that only
a joyride gone wrong—had one fatal flaw: the Sen- somebody who had been to that site at night—and,
tra got stuck on the canal’s concrete lip.
in fact, that night—would know,” he said.
Frantic, one of the three suspects had to jump
Yahya, now 42, told Insp. Mehdizadeh that she
behind the wheel of the getaway car, a Lexus SUV, and the others were waiting “calmly” for Shafia
and ram the dead the rest of the way.
and Hamed to return from the motel, and when
The next morning, a police diver recovered all they did, she “ran” to meet them in the Lexus.
JANUARY 14, 2012
‘We are not
murderers’
“They would have no reason to expect anything
bad would happen, right?” Laarhuis asked. “They
were with their mother, right?”
“Yes,” Yahya replied.
“And they were calm?”
“Indeed, it was night and we were all sitting calm
there.”
“Why would you run toward the Lexus?” he
continued.
“As I said, these were not true,” she answered.
“I’m putting to you that it was true,” he said.
“And the reason you ran to the Lexus is that you
knew in advance—it was part of the plan you were
involved in—that when they returned, that was
the end. They would be killed, and the Nissan was
going into the water. You knew that you had to
get out of that Nissan, and you ran to the Lexus.”
“I never knew about that,” she snapped back.
“That was not true. What I told him was just lies.”
Laarhuis then listed some of the facts that are
definitely not lies. Shafia purchased the Nissan
just one day before the road trip. When it was
pulled from the water, both front seats were reclined
all the way. Zainab’s cardigan was on backwards.
No one was wearing a seatbelt. And three of the
victims (all but Sahar) had fresh bruises on the top
of their heads. “Do you have any explanation as
to how that happened?” the prosecutor asked,
referring to the injuries.
“I didn’t see anything like that on their heads,”
LARS HAGBERG/CP
Cornered: When Yahya took the stand, prosecutors confronted her with evidence from the night of the murder
Yahya answered, her voice growing louder. “We
will never do anything like this. Don’t say anything like this.”
Laarhuis, speaking slowly and deliberately, continued to peel back the Crown’s theory. “You took
this Nissan, with the bodies inside, and somebody
drove it to the other side and somebody positioned
it on that plateau at the edge of Lock #1, where
the Nissan went in,” he told her. “Somebody left
the car running, rolled down the window, put the
gear shift in neutral, the seats reclined, the headlights off, the dome light off, got out of the car,
closed the door, reached through the open window, and put the car from neutral into gear one,
thinking on its own power the
Nissan would go into the water.”
The courtroom, packed to
capacity, was silent.
“What none of you expected—
what was not part of the plan—
was that the Nissan would get
hung up,” Laarhuis went on. “Do you agree with
that?”
“No, never,” Yahya said.
“And when the Nissan got hung up, there was
an emergency. You had bodies inside the car hung
up on the edge of the canal. And the emergency
required you driving the Lexus, positioning it
behind the Nissan. And that is what caused the
damage to the headlight of the Lexus.”
“No sir,” Yahya said, now sobbing. “We are not
murderers. We were a very sincere and collected
family. This crime, we will never do such a crime.
I am a mother, and if you were a mother, you
would know the heart of a mother for a child.
Don’t ever tell me that I killed my children. Never!”
In the courtroom prisoners’ box, Shafia covered
his face with Kleenex. Beside him, Hamed looked
straight ahead, eyes dry.
As the jury knows, Hamed drove straight to Montreal that morning, where he staged a single-car
accident in an empty parking lot. He then returned
to Kingston with the family’s third car, a Pontiac
minivan, and accompanied his parents to police
headquarters to file a missing persons report. “He
was in such a hurry with the Lexus that he took
your suitcases, your wallet, and your purse with
him,” Laarhuis said. “Because that wasn’t planned.”
According to prosecutors, this was a crime of
“honour,” motivated by Shafia’s rage over his daughters’ rebellious, Westernized behaviour. (Zainab
ran off to marry a man her parents despised; Sahar
wore mini-skirts and had a secret boyfriend; Geeti,
just 13, was failing all her classes
and begging to be placed in foster care.) In one wiretap, Shafia
summed up his anger this way:
“They messed up. There was no
other way.”
And on the night of her arrest,
Yahya did her best to pin the blame squarely on
her husband—not her or her son.
“It’s obvious that he has done it.”
“The decision he had made to kill his own children, believe me, I didn’t know about it.”
“In fact, I didn’t help Shafia in killing them.”
“Never tell my husband that I have said this.”
But on Friday, Yahya repeated her new story:
that everything was a lie, and what she’s saying
now is the truth. Honest. She was “under pressure,” she says, and scared to death that her beloved
son was being tortured with “cold water.”
“You want to save Hamed all the time from going
underwater,” Laarhuis said. “Why didn’t you save
your daughters from going underwater?”
“If I had known my daughters were going underwater I would have given my life so they wouldn’t
die,” she wailed. “I am a mother.”
‘The decision [Shafia]
made to kill his own
children, believe me, I
didn’t know about it’
WEEK TEN
Closing arguments and
the verdict
Unknown fate: Shafia, his wife and son possibly face 25 years in prison with no chance of parole
JUSTICE
An allegation so unthinkable
The Crown and the defence agree on at least one then a quick right around a stone wall. As one
thing: as murder plots go, it was amateur hour.
investigator testified, “it would have to be driven
The whole point (allegedly) was to cover
there on purpose.”
up the mass “honour kill” by making it
Stupid plan. Simple conclusion. (Or, as
THE
look like an incompetent wrong turn.
HONOUR another officer put it: “You guys aren’t
Daughter takes car keys, daughter swerves KILLING TRIAL hit men. You guys don’t know how to
off the road and into the Rideau Canal.
cover your tracks properly.”)
WEEK
10
But nothing about the “accident” scene
But what the jury in Kingston, Ont., must
looked accidental. Just to get to the water’s edge, decide, as deliberations finally begin, is whether
the supposedly out-of-control Nissan had to jump the absurdity of it all actually benefits the prosea high curb, make a hard left around some rocks, cution or the accused. In other words, was the
In a trial where nothing made sense, jurors now
face the difficult task of determining the truth.
alleged plot so boneheaded that it’s simply not
believable? “If the plan was to make it look like
an accident, why choose such a difficult place to
get to?” asked Peter Kemp, one of the defence
lawyers. “You’re trying to make it look like an accident, not make it look like someone knew exactly
what they were doing.”
It’s been almost three years since the Shafia sisters (Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13) were
found at the bottom of the Kingston Mills locks,
floating alongside Rona Amir Mohammad, their
dad’s first wife in a secretly polygamous Afghan
clan. In the days to come, their closest relatives—
Mohammad Shafia, father and husband, Tooba
Mohammad Yahya, mother and fellow wife, and
Hamed Shafia, brother and stepson—will learn
their fate. Charged with four counts each of firstdegree murder, a guilty verdict would carry an
automatic sentence: life in prison with no chance
of parole for 25 years.
The Crown insists it was a crime of honour,
motivated by a Muslim father’s disgust over his
daughters’ secret boyfriends and other disobedient behaviour. But as closing arguments kicked off,
lawyers for mom and dad stuck to the same script:
why? Why would a multi-millionaire businessman—
a “cosmopolitan” entrepreneur who travelled the
world and spoiled his seven children—concoct such
a dumb scheme? “There are just too many questions that can’t be ignored in this investigation,”
Yahya’s lawyer, David Crowe, told the jury.
Why would Shafia tell two different relatives that
he was going to kill Zainab? (“Totally unbelievable,”
said Kemp, his lawyer.) Why would he give police
permission—without hesitation—to examine the
Lexus if he knew it was damaged while ramming
the Nissan into the water? If Shafia didn’t want
Rona around anymore, why didn’t he just divorce
her? And why would the three of them commit
quadruple homicide in such a public place, risking
the chance that someone might drive by? “It is
much more probable,” Kemp said, “that Zainab
did in fact take the keys, panicked at some point,
and drove directly into the canal.”
There is, of course, ample evidence to the contrary. Shattered bits of Lexus headlight found at
the canal. Hamed racing back to Montreal to
retrieve the family’s other car before alerting the
cops to their “missing” relatives. Shafia ranting
on wiretaps, calling his dead daughters “whores”
and urging the devil to “s--t on their graves.” By
the time this issue of Maclean’s hits the stands,
prosecutors will also have reminded the jury that
all four victims, abused and essentially imprisoned, were desperate to escape their home in the
weeks before they drowned.
Whatever the verdict, this case has captured
the country’s attention like few crime stories ever
have. Dozens of witnesses, weeks of testimony,
and more than 150 exhibits have revealed a chilling tale of tradition and culture, of love and
expectations. The core allegation is simply unthinkable to most Canadians.
The actual courtroom has been its own separate story. Packed to capacity nearly every day, it
was renovated specifically for the complexities of
this trial. In the centre, a bulletproof prisoners’
box holds husband, wife and son, ankles shackled, armed officers on either side. To their left are
two soundproof booths, where Dari interpreters
translate the proceedings, in real time, to a gallery full of black headsets. Just reaching the end
of this trial has been a legal and logistical feat,
well-planned and perfectly executed.
Unlike, prosecutors say, what happened in the
early morning darkness of June 30, 2009. Now
it will be up to the jury to separate the absurd
from the unthinkable, the lies from the truth.
amous clan. Her murder had nothing to do with
honour. She was killed because she was no longer
needed, a convenient throw-in with the rest of the
“filth,” as Shafia called them.
Word of a verdict trickled out of the jury room
on Sunday afternoon, just after 1 o’clock. By 1:40
p.m., the accused trio—Shafia, 59; Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42; and Hamed Shafia, 21—were
being escorted into the Kingston, Ont., courtroom, their wrists and ankles cuffed, as always.
Judge decries ‘cold-blooded, shameful murders’ At 2 p.m., the gallery silent, the jury foreman
read out their decision.
The night before he was arrested for drownMohammad Shafia: guilty.
ing his beautiful Afghan daughters, Mohammad
Tooba Yahya: guilty.
Shafia told his wife and son: “I am happy and
Hamed Shafia: guilty.
my conscience is clear. They haven’t done good
As soon as the first verdict was announced, Hamed
and God punished them.” Today, in a courtleaned over and buried his face in his hands.
THE
room packed to capacity, all three “honHis mother, standing to his left, rubbed his
HONOUR back. Shafia showed no emotion, like a
our killers” received their punishment:
KILLING TRIAL man who knew what was coming.
life behind bars.
The guilty verdicts—to four counts each
Justice Robert Maranger, the presiding
WEEK 10
of first-degree murder—were the climax of
judge, asked if the killers had anything to
a sensational trial that captivated the country like say. “Bali,” Shafia said, the Dari word for yes.
few crimes have. In the end, after months of tes- “We’re not criminals. We are not murderers. And
timony and 15 hours of deliberations, a jury agreed this is unjust.”
with the prosecution’s theory: that three immi- “Your honour, this is not just,” his wife said next.
grant sisters were executed by their own father, “I’m not a murderer. I am a mother.”
their own mother, and their own brother because
Hamed—who didn’t testify in his own defence,
they didn’t behave like good Muslim girls should. and sat stone-faced during the entire trial—uttered
Their “treacherous” conduct—boyfriends, tight his one sentence in English: “Sir, I did not drown
clothes, independent thoughts—had so shamed my sisters anywhere.”
the family name that death became the only way
First-degree murder carries a mandatory sento restore their tarnished honour.
tence of life in prison with no chance of parole for
What happened to Zainab, Sahar and Geeti was 25 years. Taking into account time already served,
not a foolish wrong turn by an inexperienced driver. Shafia will be in his early 80s by the time he’s eliIt was mass murder, planned and pre-meditated gible to be released. His wife will be 64. His son
by the people who should have loved them most. will be 43.
The fourth victim, Rona Amir Mohammad, was
“It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous,
Shafia’s first and infertile wife in a secretly polyg- more despicable, more honourless crime,” Justice
JANUARY 29, 2012
At the Shafia
‘honour killing’
trial, the verdict
is in: guilty
Maranger told them. “In the case of Mohammad
Shafia, three of his daughters and his wife. In the
case of Tooba Yahya, three of her daughters and a
stepmother to all her children. In the case of Hamed
Shafia, three of his sisters and a mother. The apparent reasons behind these cold-blooded, shameful
murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honour—a
notion of honour that is founded on the domination and control of women, a notion of honour that
has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”
As jurors left their seats for the last time, some
were on the verge of tears.
Outside the courthouse, dozens of reporters
and curious citizens crowded around an iron fence,
watching as the convicted were led to a waiting
police van. “Wrong,” Shafia said, looking at the
cameras. “Wrong.” His wife and son, flanked by
police, were silent.
Gerard Laarhuis, one of two Crown attorneys
who worked the case, read a brief statement to
reporters. “This is a good day for Canadian justice,” he said, standing beside his co-prosecutor,
Laurie Lacelle. “Our democratic society protects
the rights of all. It’s a very sad day because this
jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own
family in the most troubling of circumstances.”
As he spoke, a man in the crowd screamed in
protest. “This is a lie,” he yelled. “This is injustice.”
The man, whisked away by police, was Moosa
Hadi, a self-proclaimed private investigator who
In session: On Sunday afternoon, the accused trio were being escorted into the Kingston, Ont., courtroom
worked for the Shafia family, and who testified at
trial about how prosecutors had it all wrong.
Laarhuis ignored the interruption. “We all think
of these four wonderful women now, who died
needless deaths,” he continued. “This verdict sends
a very clear message about our Canadian values
and the core principles of a free and democratic
society that all Canadians enjoy, and even visitors
to Canada enjoy.”
A multi-millionaire businessman originally from
Afghanistan, Shafia ran a successful import/export
company in Dubai before moving his clan—himself, two wives, and seven children—to Montreal
in 2007. Two summers later, on the morning of
June 30, 2009, Rona and three of his daughters
(Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17; and Geeti, 13) were found
at the bottom of Kingston Mills, a historic lock
station on the Rideau Canal. They were floating
inside a sunken Nissan Sentra, no seatbelts on,
the driver’s side window wide open.
The bodies were still in the water when Shafia,
Yahya and Hamed showed up at city police headquarters that afternoon to file a missing persons
report. By sunset, detectives were already suspicious of their story.
They told police that their family of ten was driving home to Montreal from a Niagara Falls vacation when they veered off Highway 401 and stopped
at a Kingston motel for the night. Zainab, they
said, grabbed the Nissan keys to get some clothes
from the trunk, and when they all woke up the
next morning, the car—and the women—were
gone. “I don’t know anything else,” Shafia said.
But as police learned, Hamed, 18 at the time,
didn’t stay at the motel with the others. He kept
going to Montreal, behind the wheel of his father’s
silver Lexus SUV. And once there, he dialed 911
to report a strange, single-car fender-bender in
an empty parking lot. After speaking to the offi-
cer (and asking how quickly the damage could be
repaired), he climbed inside the family’s third car,
a green minivan, and drove 300 km back to Kingston. When asked why he was in such a rush to get
back to Montreal, Hamed said he needed to pick
up his laptop.
“I think you know more than what you’ve told
me here today,” said Detective-Constable Geoff
Dempster.
“I have no idea,” Hamed answered.
He did. Officers combing the scene found tiny
shards of plastic that were later matched to the
Lexus headlight—proving that the SUV, and not
just the Nissan, were at the locks that night. Even
more damning, dents and scratches on the front
left side of the Lexus matched similar marks on
the Nissan’s back bumper, suggesting that one car
pushed the other over the concrete lip of the canal.
Over the next two weeks, detectives discovered
the disturbing truth about life inside the Shafia
household, where women were property, men
were the law, and reputation mattered more than
anything else. Shafia had brought his children
to the freest of countries, but expected them to
adhere to his old-world honour code. In his mind,
a daughter just talking to a strange boy was a sin
worthy of death.
And as police discovered, the Shafia sisters had
definitely “sinned.” Zainab ran away from home
and married a Pakistani. Sahar had a secret boyfriend of her own—and had twice reported her
parents to Quebec’s child-welfare agency. Geeti,
despite her young age, was the most rebellious of
all, telling anyone who listened that she wanted
to be placed in foster care. She had no intention
of following her father’s “traditions.”
On July 18, less than three weeks after the car
was found, police invited father, mother and son
back to Kingston to update them on the case—and
secretly plant a wiretap in their minivan. They
also took the trio on a tour of the locks, telling
them (falsely) that a camera had been found nearby
and detectives were sifting through the coverage.
Back in the van, police were listening.
“There was no camera over there,” Yahya said.
“I looked around, there wasn’t any. If, God forbid,
God forbid, there was one in that little house, all
three of us have come, no?”
Shafia agreed: “They’re lying.”
Over the next three days, the wiretaps captured
Shafia railing against his dead daughters, describing them as “whores” who were “filthy” and
“treacherous.”
“If we remain alive one night or one year, we have
no tension in our hearts, [thinking that] our daughter is in the arms of this or that boy, in the arms of
this or that man,” he said. “God curse their graduation! Curse of God on both of them, on their kind.
God’s curse on them for a generation! May the
devil shit on their graves! Is that what a daughter
should be? Would [she] be such a whore?”
In one recording, Yahya told her husband that
she knew Zainab “was already done,” but wished
the “two others weren’t.”
“No, Tooba, they messed up. There was no other
way, ” he replied. “They committed treason from
beginning to end. They betrayed kindness, they
everything.”
They were arrested 36 hours later. Interrogated
by police, Shafia and Hamed conceded nothing.
Yahya, however, did cave, admitting that all three
were at the locks when the women died—but that
she fainted after hearing the splash and didn’t
remember anything else.
Four months after that, Hamed gave a jailhouse
statement to his father’s private investigator (the
same man who heckled the prosecutors this afternoon). He admitted, for the first time, that he was
at the locks when the Nissan went in—but just him,
not his parents. According to his new story, he
saw the women in the hotel parking lot, itching
to drive to a gas station so Rona could buy a phone
card. Because none of them had a license, Hamed
said he agreed to follow them to make sure they
returned safely.
The pumps, though, were closed, and while
looking for a suitable place to turn around, both
cars ended up near the locks. It was there, Hamed
said, that he accidentally rear-ended the Sentra.
“I hit the back but not hard, just the glass was broken, the glass of Lexus car,” he said.
Moments later, while picking up the shards, he
heard a splash and sprinted over. “At that moment,”
he told Hadi, “I think one of the lights was showing.” He grabbed a yellow rope from his trunk,
dangled it over the water and beeped his horn
several times. When none of his sisters swam to
the surface, he did what any good brother would:
he climbed back into the SUV and headed straight
home to Montreal.
He never told his parents what happened, he said,
and didn’t call police because he was afraid they
would “blame me” for allowing Zainab to drive
without a license. “I was scared,” Hamed said. “I
decided with myself not to say that I was with them.”
At trial, that was the story the defence stuck to:
Mom and Dad had no idea what happened, Hamed
did, but kept it a secret.
In her closing submissions, Laurie Lacelle offered
a much different explanation. “Shafia, Tooba and
Hamed decided there was a diseased limb on their
family tree,” she said. “And their solution was to
remove the diseased limb in its entirety, and prune
the tree back to the good wood.”
The jury agreed.
Zainab Mohammad Shafia
September 9, 1989 – June 30, 2009
Sahar Mohammad Shafia
October 22, 1991 – June 30, 2009
Geeti Mohammad Shafia
Rona Amir Mohammad
September 15, 1956 – June 30, 2009
SUNNY FREEMAN/CP
November 30, 1995 – June 30, 2009

Shafia - Maclean`s

Transcription

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