Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Atlanta Honor Killer: I'm innocent

Meanwhile his daughter Sandeela is reported to have been strangled with a bungee cord. CPR was attempted but she had been dead for some time.

A Pakistani man accused of killing his daughter five days after she filed for divorce to end her arranged marriage wept in court Tuesday, telling a Clayton County magistrate he is innocent. "I have done nothing wrong," Chaudhry Rashid told Chief Magistrate Daphne Walker through interpreter Younis Farhat. Farhat said Rashid speaks primarily Urdu and Punjabi. But police say Rashid, 54, used a bungee cord to strangle Sandeela Kanwal, 25, early Sunday morning in the family's Utah Drive home in Jonesboro.

I keep wondering where Sandeela's other relatives were when the murder was going on? Initial reports acknowledge the presence of other relatives in the home and one had the father coming downstairs and announcing to her brother that 'his sister was dead' prior to the arrival of the police. And what about her mother, I wondered? Turns out Tina, Rashid's wife, is not Sandeela's mother.

The wife also said her husband, who arranged the marriage, and their daughter have not spoken to each other for two months. Kanwal also left her husband in Chicago and had been staying at the family home in Georgia.

Rashid's wife called 911 on Sunday upon hearing a scream at 2 a.m. inside their Utah Drive home. Police who went to the Rashid family's house were told by the suspect "My daughter is dead."



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