‘Honor’ killer accused of third slaying
Neighbor says Irsan admitted shooting another son-in-law
Jordanian immigrant Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan told a neighbor in 1999 that he “got away with murder” by planting a gun on the body of a son-in-law after he blasted him with a shotgun, according to testimony Friday that will help determine his sentence for two slayings in 2012.
Irsan, 60, faces the death penalty after a Harris County jury convicted him Thursday of killing another son-inlaw — and his daughter’s close friend — in a pair of “honor killings” in 2012.
The earlier death of another of Irsan’s sons-inlaw did not result in charges against him after he apparently convinced local authorities that the fatal shooting was in selfdefense. Irsan fathered 12 children by two wives, the second of whom was only 15 when he married her in Jordan before bringing her to Texas.
Randy Wilkinson, 47, was one of several witnesses who testified Friday about prior “bad acts” by Irsan in the punishment phase of his trial. Jurors will decide whether
he will receive the death penalty or spend life in a Texas prison without parole.
“He told me that he got away with murder,” said Wilkinson, who lived near Irsan’s rural Montgomery County compound. “He said he invited his son-in-law to his house and shot him. He said he shot him with a 12-gauge shotgun and planted a gun on him.”
Wilkinson, who described Irsan as “evil,” said the two men initially got along, then became bitter enemies after Irsan told Wilkinson’s wife to “keep her mouth shut while men were talking about business.”
“He said he was going to kill me, kill my family, kill my dogs and burn my house down,” Wilkinson testified. “I told him that if he set foot on my property, I’d blow his brains out.”
Wilkinson was one of the first witnesses in a punishment phase that is expected to last about two weeks.
On Thursday, it took a Harris County jury a little more than a half-hour to find Irsan guilty of killing his daughter’s husband and her close friend who supported the marriage. Prosecutors characterized Irsan as a “radical extremist Muslim,” and told the jury that his motive for the double killings was to restore the family honor after the daughter ran away from the family compound, converted to Christianity and married a Christian man.
‘He bragged about it’
Jurors also heard about Irsan’s previous federal conviction for Social Security fraud, and how he defrauded his mosque.
Prosecutors told the jury on Friday that Irsan’s bloodshed and bad acts started long before 2012, including the 1999 shooting of the son-in-law of whom he did not approve.
“He bragged about it,” special prosecutor Jon Stephenson told jurors. “He used it as a tool to manipulate his children, to hold them in fear.”
In September 1999, Irsan killed 29-year-old Amjad Alidam with a 12-gauge shotgun in east Montgomery County. He claimed his son-in-law was abusing his daughter and had threatened him and his family.
The Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office did not charge Irsan because it appeared the shooting was in self-defense, according to newspaper archives.
Prosecutors are expected to call witnesses who are afraid of Irsan as far back as 1999, as well as introduce evidence from the 1999 crime scene that makes his son-in-law’s homicide look like a murder.
On Friday, a federal prosecutor testified that Irsan was convicted of defrauding the government of almost $300,000, including Medicare and Social SecuriHarris ty benefits of more than $200,000, food stamps and fraudulent benefits for his wife.
A member of Irsan’s Conroearea mosque told the jury that Irsan took more than $10,000 in charity from the denomination for electricity bills and rent payments. Ayma Khalil testified that members of the mosque later found out that the rent payments were going to Irsan’s wife and were discontinued.
Murder convictions
Irsan’s defense team did not give opening statements when the punishment phase began. During the trial, attorneys Allen Tanner and Rudy Duarte argued that someone else, anyone else, could have committed the two murders in 2012.
They are expected to put on mitigating evidence in the form of witnesses from Jordan about Irsan’s upbringing.
During a five-week trial, jurors heard details of the two successive murders linked to Irsan.
He was convicted of killing Coty Beavers, the 28-year-old husband of his daughter, Nesreen, at the couple’s northwest County apartment in November 2012. The daughter ran away from the family compound after meeting Beavers at a local college and the two began dating. She moved in with Beaver’s family in Spring, and Nesreen converted to Christianity before their marriage.
Irsan’s second wife told the jury that she was along on the day her husband and son slipped into Beaver’s unlocked apartment where he was killed. When Irsan and his son returned, she was told Irsan had fatally shot Beavers.
The first honor killing took place in January 2012, when Nesreen’s close friend, a medical researcher and Iranian activist named Gelareh Bagherzadeh, 30, was shot to death outside her parents home in the Galleria area.
Testimony and GPS evidence confirmed that Irsan, his wife and his adult son were stalking Nesreen and followed Bagherzadeh home, where Irsan’s son ambushed her as she sat in her car.
“He said he was going to kill me, kill my family, kill my dogs and burn my house down. I told him that if he set foot on my property, I’d blow his brains out.”
Randy Wilkinson, Ali Irsan’s neighbor