“Zainab (19), Sahar (17), Geeti (13), and Rona (52) all dreamed of a better life for themselves. Having moved from their home in Afghanistan to Australia to Dubai, they finally landed in Quebec, Canada with bright hopes and goals for their future. Two years later, they would be dead.
Zainab was fiercely loyal to and protective of her sisters. Sahar had dreams of becoming a gynecologist so that she could help women back home in Afghanistan. Geeti wasn’t afraid to speak up for what was right and to loudly proclaim her love for her sisters. Rona had only wanted what was best for her family.
Background
In 1979 or 1980, Mohammad Shafia married Rona Mohammed. The couple did not have children, and medical tests confirmed that Rona was unable to have children. In keeping with Afghan custom, and at Rona’s behest, Mohammad Shafia took Tooba Yahya as his second wife. The second wedding took place in 1989, and Rona features prominently in many wedding photographs, many of which feature Shafia flanked by his two wives. The three of them lived together in one household, as is customary, and Tooba gave birth to seven children. Rona participated fully in raising and caring for the children and bonded strongly with them, as though they were her own. Her relationship with her co-wife, however, was less idyllic.
The Shafia family left Afghanistan in 1992. They moved to Australia for a brief time. Later, they relocated to the United Arab Emirates, where they lived for over a decade. Mohammad Shafia made a considerable fortune in Dubai, working in the used car business and later diversifying into real estate. By 2007, he was a multimillionaire.
He soon decided to take advantage of an immigration program introduced by the Government of Quebec in Canada which offered permanent residence and eventual citizenship to people who invested significant money in the province. Shafia invested $2 million in purchasing a strip mall on the outskirts of Montreal; he invested a further $200,000 in building a spacious new house for his family. Shafia, his second wife Tooba, and their seven children immigrated to Canada and settled in the Saint-Léonard borough of Montreal in 2007. Five months later, Shafia sponsored Rona’s immigration, telling authorities that she was his cousin and that she would work as a cook and housekeeper.
According to a family member’s interview, Rona was trapped in an abusive, loveless marriage, trying in vain to convince her husband to grant her a divorce. Rona’s siblings claimed that she feared for her life during the days leading up to her death.
Tooba allegedly said to Rona, ‘You are a slave; you are a servant.’
Reportedly, the Shafias held all of Rona’s identity documents, including her passport, so Rona believed she could not flee to another country where she had relatives. The Montreal Gazette reported that Rona emigrated to Canada as a domestic servant on a visitor’s visa and that her husband and co-wife ‘held [the visa’s renewal] over her head like an axe ready to fall.’
The interviewed family member also stated that the Shafia family’s eldest daughter, Zainab, was in a relationship with a Pakistani boy that elicited much anger from her father; the family member claimed to have overheard the father’s threats to kill Zainab.
The father’s business took him on a work trip to Dubai shortly before the murders. His eldest son, Hamed, met up with him in Dubai with a suitcase full of photos of his oldest sister and her boyfriend. Hamed informed his father of this so-called ‘dishonor’ upon his family, and the plotting began. Google searches included phrases like ‘where to commit a murder’ and whether convicted criminals can still own property.
The Murder
On June 27, 2009, the family was returning from a convoluted ‘road trip’ that took them from their suburb in Quebec all the way to Niagara Falls and back. Two cars were used – a Nissan Sentra and a Lexus SUV. All along, investigators believe the goal of this road trip was to murder the four women, Zainab, Sahar, Geeti, and Rona.
It was around 1 am when Tooba and the four women piled into the car. Zainab, Sahar, Geeti, and Rona were sleepy – and that was the goal. Though it is unclear exactly what happened, investigators believe the four were drowned prior to being piled into the car.
On June 30, 2009, a worker at the Kingston Mills locks in Kingston, Ontario, Canada discovered the black Nissan Sentra with a broken left taillight submerged in the water. Divers then discovered four female bodies floating inside.
Mohammad Shafia was at the Kingston Police station to report that four of his family members – three teenage daughters and a purported aunt – were missing. Police initially believed that it was a tragic bizarre, accident; they first categorized it as a ‘sudden death investigation.’
However, authorities soon learned that Hamed had reported an accident with the family Lexus SUV in an empty parking lot earlier that same morning in Montreal. Despite their suspicions, authorities did not have ‘reasonable and probable grounds’ or sufficient evidence to ask a judge for a search warrant. Kingston Police Det. Steve Koopman, the liaison with the Shafia family, managed to gain the Shafia family’s consent to view the Lexus. After assessing the damage on both vehicles, police theorized that the Lexus was used to ram the Nissan into the locks.
It had been reported that the Shafia family purchased the used Nissan Sentra for CAD $5,000 on the day prior to the family leaving Montreal for Niagara Falls.
Trial
On January 29, 2012, after 15 hours of deliberation, a jury found each of the three defendants guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. In Canada, first-degree murder verdicts carry an automatic sentence of life without the possibility of parole for 25 years. If they are ever let out, they will be deported as they never became permanent citizens in Canada.
Honor Killings And Violence Against Women
I really want to highlight an important quote for context about this case as well as others like it:
Calling the murders honor killings accomplishes two goals. First, it makes it seem as if femicide is a highly unusual event. Second, it makes it seem as if femicide is confined to specific populations within Canada and specific national cultures or religions in the world at large. But Canadian statistics prove otherwise.
According to StatsCan figures, from 2000 to 2009 an average of 58 women a year were killed in this country as a result of spousal violence. In that same period, 67 children and young people aged 12 to 17 were murdered by family members. In contrast, recent estimates tell us that there have been 12 or 13 so-called honor killings in Canada in the last decade.
It does not take a genius to see that comparing 12 or 13 against the hundreds of women and children who were victims of familial violence serves only to frame ‘honor killing’ as peculiar when in reality it is part of a larger pattern of violence against women.”
Rest in peace Zainab, Sahar, Geeti, and Rona.”
