Germany: Muslim father strangled daughter to death in 'honour killing' after she shoplifted condoms

A Muslim father strangled his 19-year-old daughter to death after learning that she had been caught shoplifting condoms to have sex with her boyfriend, who she had been forbidden from seeing.

Asadullah Khan, 51, admitting killing his daughter Lareeb in the early hours of the morning on 28 January as she had brought 'dishonour' to the family, reports Germany's Bild newspaper.

After killing her with his bare hands, Asadullah and his wife, Shazia, 41, dressed Lareeb, a dental technician, in her clothes. They then took the body, in a wheelchair, from their high rise apartment in Darmstadt to their car, drove to a secluded forest, and rolled the body down an embankment. Passers-by found the body the following day.

"Lareeb stayed away from the home for several nights in a row and stopped wearing the headscarf. One day we received a letter from the police saying she had been caught trying to steal condoms," Shazia told the court.

"At this point it became clear that there was sexual contact. When I showed the letter to my husband he snapped."

Lareeb was forbidden from leaving the home, and beaten for meeting her boyfriend. Lareeb continued to meet him though in defiance of her parents, and refused to wear her headscarf.

The court in Darmstadt heard how the couple, originally from Pakistan, sent Lareeb's 14-year-old sister Nida to a relative on the evening of the murder.

On the morning of the murder Asadullah woke between 2am and 3am, went into Lareeb's bedroom, knelt astride her and strangled her to death.

Shazia said she awoke and saw her husband strangling their daughter but did not have the strength to fight him off. Earlier, she claimed she was downtrodden by her husband, who she was wed to in an arranged marriage, and unable to protect Lareeb.

However Nida, testifying against her parents in court, said that Shazia also took part in physically abusing Lareeb.

"My mama was not suppressed, she could do what she wanted. She used to hit me with a stick. We were never allowed to talk about her [Lareeb's] boyfriend. My father used to say my sister should be forcibly married in Pakistan," she told the court.

Lareeb's boyfriend Raheel, 25, a student and taxi driver, told the court that they wanted to get married and that Lareeb had told him of being beaten by her mother with a stick, having her hand pressed against a hot stove by her, and of her father previously attempting to strangle her.

Asadullah, who speaks hardly any German, told the court: "If I could do it all undone, I would do it. My wife has just obeyed me. I love my wife and my daughters. "

The case continues.