Court is scathing of fatal ‘honour’

A SYDNEY man who gunned his nephew down for having an affair with his wife in an “honour killing” has been sentenced to 32 years’ jail.

The 51-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will serve at least 23 years behind bars before being eligible for parole over the 2015 murder of the 23-year-old in Sydney’s southwest.

Supreme Court Justice Peter Johnson yesterday said the killer was motivated by feelings of “sexual jealousy” after discovering his nephew – who had arrived in Australia three months prior – and wife had been carrying on the affair. The man, appearing via videolink, showed little emotion as Justice Johnson delivered his sentence. In July, he spat at jurors and labelled them “pigs” after he was found guilty of shooting his nephew seven times with a 0.22 calibre handgun outside the victim’s western Sydney home.

The man lay in wait in the dark behind a tree in the victim’s front yard before executing him with six shots to the head and one to the chest. On the night, the victim had attended a “rendezvous” with his aunt. During the trial, the court heard the aunt’s DNA was later found on swabs of his genitals, palm and wrist.

Justice Johnson discarded the man’s claim he had been “dishonoured” after discovering the liaisons.

“To the extent that the term ‘honour killing’ has been used in this and other cases, I record my immediate rejection of the concept of ‘honour’ as playing any part in an understanding of this crime,” he said.

“... The killing of a person in circumstances such as this should not attract the use of the term ‘honour killing’ as there is no honour about such an event.”

The man had arranged for his nephew to come to Australia in mid-January 2015 to marry his daughter. In February the victim told police he had been assaulted by both the man and his daughter, and a few months later made a triple zero call while driving because he was being tailed by the man in another vehicle.

The man sent text messages to his wife expressing his outrage that she was having an affair with his nephew.

“I cannot take it any more and I fear I will get carried away,” he said in one text on April 15.

Justice Johnson said the man had purchased two devices to track his nephew and wife and used them to find the nephew’s home.

THIS SHOULD NOT ATTRACT THE USE OF THE TERM ‘HONOUR KILLING’ AS THERE IS NO HONOUR ABOUT SUCH AN EVENT

JUSTICE PETER JOHNSON