Laura Wilson, described as “feisty” and “headstrong,” died from multiple stab wounds when one of her Muslim boyfriends butchered her with a knife.
A Muslim “Asian” was convicted for the murder; the suspected accomplice was acquitted.
Wilson's murder highlights the growing scourge of honor crimes in Britain, brought there by its Muslim immigrants.
Laura’s Story
The Mail 's Jane Corbin noted of Wilson, of Rotherham, about three hours north of London: “Although only a teenager, Laura already had a baby by an Asian man, Ishaq ‘Zac’ Hussein, a 20-year-old.” Hussein “refused to recognise the child,” the paper reported, but Laura “was really in love with his friend, Ashtiaq Ashgar.” Laura's mother was clear about the man her daughter really loved: “Ashtiaq was her first love, she adored him,” she told the Mail."
Still, Laura was “stung by Zac’s rejection of her and their child,” and “decided to confront the men’s families and told them she’d had sexual relations with both men.” The Mail continued,
Sheffield police believe this was the trigger for a plan to kill Laura.
Detective Superintendent Mick Mason told me that Laura’s decision to go round to the families and to confront them was not welcomed in the Pakistani community.
He says: “An argument broke out — one of the mothers tried to hit Laura with a shoe.”
Police know from analysing records of the two men’s phones that after the heated exchange they held several meetings. There were even text messages about buying a gun.
Ashgar lured Laura to a “desolate industrial area” and “asked her to meet by the canal.”
Police believe Ashtiaq began a frenzied knife attack on the girl before throwing her, badly wounded, into the canal.
“I have seen many murders in my time,” said DS Mason, “but this was the worst.”
Ashtiaq Ashgar killed the girl by repeatedly stabbing her in the head “as she tried to struggle out of the water.” He received just 17 years in prison for the murder; Hussein is free.
Authorities concluded that Laura’s murder was an honor killing because she dishonored and offended the families of the men by admitting that she had had sex with both men.
Another Day, Another Honor Killing
But Laura’s murder at the hands of Muslims is unusual in only one aspect. She is a white native Briton. The honor murders of Muslim women, such as Kurds or Iranians, are common in Britain.
As The New American reported in December, the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), dedicated to protecting women from honor crimes, reported 3,000 such crimes in 2010. Analysts say it is likely that Muslims commit the vast majority of honor crimes, although police claim that “honour-based violence cuts across all cultures, nationalities and faith groups.”
IKWRO says it “sent Freedom of Information requests to all 52 police forces across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland asking how many incidents of ‘honour’ based violence they had recorded last year. 39 police forces responded with a total of 2823 incidents. IKWRO estimates that a further 500 incidents may have been reported to the 13 forces who did not respond.” The group continued,
Twelve of the police forces also provided statistics for 2009, and nine of these showed an increase in "honour" crime between 2009 and 2010. The overall increase across the twelve forces was 57%. In London “honour” crime has doubled to more than 5 times the national average, and in Northumberland it has tripled in a year.
The report said the top five areas with the highest number of these crimes are London (495), West Midlands, (378), West Yorkshire (350), Lancashire (227), and Manchester (189).
Observers say honor crimes are rocketing out of control because police are afraid to zero in on the community responsible for almost all of them. “I can say that we have got a policy in the UK [of] political correctness which sometimes is politically wrong and it’s happened within how … to deal with issues happening within the Muslim community,” an IKWRO spokesman told the BBC.
As well, police don’t seem to grasp the concept of honor murder, the Daily Mail reported in its story about Laura Wilson, or understand the tactics families use to perpetrate and hide them. “'Often there is a high degree of organisation often precipitated by a family meeting,” Scotland Yard Detective Caroline Goode told the newspaper. The Mail continued,
Goode spent four years investigating and bringing to justice four men, all relatives, who were involved in the case of Banaz Mahmoud, a 19-year-old Kurdish girl who was murdered at her family home in South London in 2006.
… Goode pursued two of the suspects to Iraq and they were extradited back to Britain and tried in court. Banaz’s fate was sealed when she was spotted kissing her boyfriend outside Morden Tube Station in South London.
She had been allowed by her family to leave her violent husband but when she started seeing someone else, it was too much for their honour.
The newspaper reported that Banaz would not have been killed had police believed her tale when she landed in the hospital after the first attempt to reclaim the family’s “honor” failed. Her father had tried to kill her after the family ordered the murder. “The officer simply did not understand or believe what she was being told and had no knowledge of honour-based violence,” the detective told the newspaper.
Banaz even named the family members trying to kill her. Police ignored her plea for help, however, so “with no where else to turn to she went home.”
Less than a month later, Banaz was killed on the floor of her own living room in the most shocking and violent way involving rape and strangulation.
Two of her relatives were arrested and taken into custody where they were secretly recorded boasting that they had hidden her body more than 100 miles away.
The murderers buried Banaz under a house.
Honor Killings Here
As the Muslim population in the United States has grown, so too has the number of honor killings.
According to Fox News, the first reported honor murder on American soil was that of 16-year-old Tina Isa in 1989.
Tina’s murderers were her parents, one of whom, father Zein Isa, was a terrorist. He and his wife stabbed the girl 13 times. A jury heard the tape of the murder because the FBI had wiretapped the terrorist’s home.
And 2009, as The New American reported, was a busy year for honor killers. Among the victims were the stepdaughter of a man who tried to claim he shot her in the head by accident. In another case, a Muslim used a car to mow down his daughter.
In the same year, another honor murder made national headlines. The founder of a Muslim television station, Muzzammil Hassan, beheaded his wife, Assiya, after years of beatings had prompted her to file for divorce. Hassan stabbed her 40 times during a 37-second orgy of mayhem that ended only when he decapitated her. Ironically, he had founded the television station after the Muslims terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, to combat “stereotypes” about Muslims.
Also in 2009, a Muslim in Kentucky beat his wife with a hammer and slashed the throats of their children. The murders of the children were so gruesome that even hardened detectives were sickened.
Photo of Banaz Mahmoud: AP Images
