The father of a Kurdish woman tortured, raped and murdered in a "honour killing" in Britain was jailed for at least 20 years today.
Banaz Mahmod's father, Mahmod Mahmod (52), ordered the killing, and her uncle, Ari Mahmod (51), helped to arrange it. Both men received a 23-year minimum sentence after being found guilty of murder last month.
Mahmod Mahmod was jailed today for arranging the murder of his daughter Banaz. Image: Lewis Whyld/PA Wire.
A third man, Mohamad Hama (31), pleaded guilty to murder and will spend at least 17 years in jail.
Members of her family and several family friends plotted her murder. The 20-year-old was raped and garrotted during an ordeal lasting more than two-and-a-half hours at her family home in south London last year.
Hama carried out the killing and arranged for the body to be buried in a suitcase six feet beneath a house in Birmingham.
Banaz told police four times she feared for her life after falling in love with Iranian Kurd Rahmat Suleimani (28), a man her family disapproved of, but her claims were not taken seriously, the court heard.
She even gave officers of list of five people she suspected would harm her and Mr Sulemani, which included the name of Hama.
Sentencing the three at London's Old Bailey, Judge Brian Barker said: "This offence was designed to carry a wider message to the community to discourage legal behaviour of girls and women in this country. . . . This was a barbaric and a callous crime."
The court had heard how she angered her family after walking out of an abusive arranged marriage that she entered aged 17. She fell in love with Mr Suleimani, meeting him in secret and swapping messages several times a day.
Detectives were led to Birmingham after checking suspects' telephone records and fitting a tracker device to a hire car that Hama was driving.