Shafia family found guilty of first-degree murder

KINGSTON, ON. (NEWS1130) – A jury has found three members of a Montreal family, originally from Afghanistan, guilty of first-degree murder in a so-called honour killing.

Fifty-eight year old Mohammad Shafia, his 42-year-old wife Tooba Yahya, and their 21-year-old son Hamed have been found guilty of four counts each of first-degree murder.

The judge asked the three accused if they had anything to say and all three of them said they are not murderers.  Tooba Yahya was heard saying, “I am not a murderer.  I am a mother.”

They are convicted of killing Mohammad’s three daughters: 19-year-old Zainab, 17-year-old Sahar and 13-year-old Geeti.  Mohammad’s first wife, 52-year-old Rona Amir Mohammad, was also killed.

Their four bodies were found on June 30th, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home from Niagara Falls.

Crown Counsel believes Mohammad, Tooba and Hamed drowned the four victims elsewhere on the site, placed their bodies in the car and then pushed it into the canal with the family’s other car.

The defence had said it was an accident, that they had gone for a joy ride with Zainab driving and accidentally plunged into the water with Hamed watching, although he didn’t call police.

News1130 Legal Analyst Michael Shapray says it’s surprising it only took the jury 15 hours to deliver its verdict. 

“One thing we have in Canada is the Juries Act that bars jurors from ever speaking about what happened during a trial or during deliberation.  Unlike the United States where we often see jurors appearing on talk shows and being interviewed by the media, there is no opportunity to do that in Canada.”

“It is a very fast verdict for a case of that magnitude, with multiple accused and when they’ve been instructed to review the evidence against each of the accused individually.  But again, we don’t know what happened; we just have to assume they did their job,” he adds.