An Italian appeals court has reaffirmed life sentences for a Pakistani couple involved in the murder of their 18-year-old daughter, Saman Abbas, in a notable so-called honor killing case that has deeply resonated across Italy. The young woman had defied her family by refusing an arranged marriage, which led to her tragic demise and highlighted the severe mistreatment faced by immigrant women resisting rigid family expectations.
The appeals decision in Bologna concluded that Saman Abbas, whose remains were discovered in 2022 at a farmhouse, 18 months following her disappearance, was murdered with the complicity of her entire family network. Both her father, Shabbir Abbas, and mother, Nazia Shaheen, received life sentences. Additionally, two cousins, initially acquitted by a lower court, were also given life imprisonment.
Danish Hasnain, Saman’s uncle, was sentenced to 22 years, an increase from his prior 14-year punishment, acknowledging his role in orchestrating his niece’s murder. The high-profile court proceedings in Reggio Emilia, located in northern Italy, underscore a broader pattern within the country of addressing crimes against immigrant women resisting pressure to enter arranged marriages.
Honor killings, while alarmingly prevalent in Pakistan, involve family-approved murders of women deviating from established cultural norms, such as marrying by choice rather than family arrangement. Back in November 2022, Saman Abbas’ remains were unearthed at a deserted farmhouse close to where her father labored in northern Italy. Prosecutors assert that her family was responsible for her murder on May 1, 2021, shortly before her parents departed for Pakistan.
Her father was subsequently apprehended in Pakistan and extradited to face Italian courts, while her mother, convicted in absentia, was caught in May after evading authorities for three years. The trial, which began in February 2023, included Saman’s father, mother, uncle, and cousins, all of whom pleaded not guilty.
Saman had relocated from Pakistan to Novellara in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region as a teenager, quickly adapting to European customs by discarding her headscarf and engaging in a romantic relationship with a young man of her choosing. A publicly shared image showed the couple kissing in Bologna, an act Italian investigators noted greatly angered her parents, who had other matrimonial plans for her involving a cousin back in Pakistan.
Surveillance footage captured Saman’s last known movements on April 30, 2021, near her father’s worksite at a watermelon farm, mere days before her death. She had conveyed to her boyfriend her fears for her safety after rejecting a proposal to marry an older man in Pakistan.
The posthumous examination of her body indicated a broken neck, suggesting potential strangulation. In response to cases like Saman’s, Italy introduced a law in 2019 classifying the coercion of citizens or residents into marriage, even if occurring abroad, as an offense under domestic violence statutes. Following her disappearance, Italy’s Islamic communities’ association issued a decisive religious prohibition against forced marriages.