Shafilea Ahmed was found dead in 2004 (Facebook)
Shafilea Ahmed was found dead in 2004 (Facebook)

The sister of murdered teenager Shafilea Ahmed said she saw her parents kill the 17-year-old by forcing a plastic bag in her mouth until she suffocated.

Alesha Ahmed, who was 14 at the time of her sister's death in 2003, allegedly witnessed her parents, Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed, kill Shafilea at their home in Warrington.

Alesha, who is now 23, said how she saw her parents "acting together" during the murder of her older sister on 11 September and kept the secret for seven years, Chester crown court heard.

Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and his wife, Farzana, 49, both deny murdering their daughter.

Prosecuting, Andrew Edis QC told the jury on the second day of the trail: "She [Alesha] describes an act of suffocation using a carrier bag forced into Shafilea's mouth and hands over her face and nose so that she couldn't breathe."

Edis then said Alehsa claims she saw her mother "sorting through blankets and sheets" before seeing her father "with a large object wrapped in bin bags with brown tape wrapped around it. She assumed that was the body of her sister."

Shafilea's decomposed remains were discovered on the banks of the River Kent in Cumbria in February 2004. The court heard how it was not until 2010 that Alesha provided the "final piece of the puzzle" about her death.

Alesha gave her account of events after being arrested for involvement in a robbery at her parent's house. Six days later, she alleged that it was her parents who killed her sister.

Edis suggested she was either telling the truth or had concocted "a wicked lie made up to help herself". Alesha is due to be sentenced for the robbery at a later date.

"She now finds herself estranged from the family as a result of what she has said. Her life has turned upside down because of what she has said and what she has done," Edis added.

The trail continues.

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