A court in northern Italy convicted the parents and an uncle of an 18-year-old Pakistani woman for her murder in Italy after she refused her family’s demands to marry a cousin in their homeland.
Saman Abbas’ body was discovered in November 2022 in an abandoned farmhouse near the fields where her father worked in northern Italy, a year and a half after she was last seen alive on surveillance video walking near the same fields with her parents. Italian prosecutors argued that she was killed by her family on May 1, 2021. Shortly after the alleged crime, her parents, Shabbar Abbas and Nazia Shaheen, flew from Milan to Pakistan.
In a court in Reggio Emilia, Italy, the parents were sentenced to life in prison, while her uncle, Danish Hasnain, received a 14-year prison term. Hasnain had been detained in France under a European arrest warrant in September 2021. Two cousins were found not guilty and were ordered to be released from jail.
Shabbar Abbas, who was extradited from Pakistan in August, proclaimed his innocence during a tearful statement to the court before deliberations. His wife, Nazia Shaheen, was tried in absentia and is believed to be in Pakistan. A court in northern
This trial marked the most high-profile among several criminal investigations in Italy in recent years dealing with the slaying or mistreatment of immigrant women or girls who resisted family pressure to marry someone chosen for them. Saman Abbas, whose image wearing red lipstick and a red headband became symbolic, highlighted public concern in Italy over violence against women perpetrated by family members or partners. An autopsy revealed that the young woman had a broken neck bone, possibly resulting from strangulation. Saman Abbas had immigrated as a teenager from Pakistan to the farm town of Novellara in Italy’s northern region of Emilia-Romagna.
Saman Abbas swiftly embraced Western customs, including discarding her headscarf and engaging in a relationship with a man of her choosing. In a social media post, she and her Pakistani boyfriend were captured kissing on a street in Bologna, the regional capital.
According to Italian investigators, this public display of affection infuriated Abbas’ parents, who insisted on her marrying a cousin in Pakistan. Reportedly, she confided in her boyfriend about fearing for her life due to her resistance to marrying an older man in her homeland.
Arranged marriages are prevalent among conservative Pakistanis, and “honor killings” are tragically common, where women are murdered by husbands or relatives as punishment for alleged adultery or other perceived illicit behavior.
In 2020, Pakistani authorities arrested two men for allegedly murdering two female family members after a video showed them being kissed by a man and posted online.
More recently, four Pakistani men were arrested in connection with the killing of an 18-year-old woman over a photo that seemed to depict her sitting with a boyfriend. Subsequently, Pakistani police revealed that the photo had been manipulated, as reported by the BBC.