‘Honour killing’ men on trial in Pakistan

THE father and ex-husband of a British woman allegedly murdered in an “honour killing” in Pakistan have appeared in court on suspicion of killing her.

Samia Shahid, a 28-year-old beautician from Bradford, died last month while visiting family in Pakistan.

Her family said she was killed by a heart attack, but Pakistani police suspect she was murdered by her ex-husband Choudhry Shakeel, with the help of her father, Mohammad Shahid.

Ms Shahid was wed to Shakeel in an arranged marriage that broke down after just a year.

She then married another man in 2014 and Pakistani detectives suspect that her estranged first husband and her father colluded to kill her for supposedly bringing shame on the family.

Both men appeared in shackles and with their faces covered in court in the northern city of Jhelum yesterday, where a judge ordered that they be held for four days as charges are gathered against them.

Both men deny they had anything to do with Ms Shahid’s death.

Police sources said detectives also want to speak to Ms Shahid’s mother and sister, who left Pakistan and returned to Britain.

The source said police in Pakistan want to take statements from them and if they refuse to cooperate, then Pakistan may seek their extradition.

Ms Shahid’s present husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazam, raised the alarm after her death and a forensic examination later concluded that she had been strangled.

The case has become high-profile in Pakistan after the country’s interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, ordered a full investigation.

The family’s local MP in Bradford, Naz Shah, has also campaigned to get answers about what happened to Ms Shahid.