Father and uncle arrested over Italian woman’s ‘honour killing’

Pair charged with the murder of Sana Cheema in Mangowal area of the city of Gujrat

Pakistani police yesterday arrested the father and the uncle suspected in an ‘honour killing’ of a 25-yearold Italian citizen, a woman of Pakistani origin who refused to marry the man they chose for her.

The two men were charged with the killing of Sana Cheema in the neighbourhood of Mangowal in the city of Gujrat in eastern Punjab province, police official Intisar Hussain said, adding that the police were still searching for the woman’s brother.

“He is also suspected of playing a role in her murder,” Hussain said.

Nearly 1,000 women are killed every year in Pakistan in so-called ‘honour killings’,” cases in which members of their families or relatives kill them for violating conservative norms on love, marriage and public behaviour.

The Italian Foreign Ministry said it was following the case through its embassy in Islamabad, which was gathering information from Pakistani authorities to define the circumstances of the case and offer any assistance that might be necessary.

Pakistani police say Cheema died on April 18 under mysterious circumstances. Her body is expected to be exhumed today morning to determine the cause of death.

Cheema’s case came to light after her friends shared posts on social media about her death, eventually prompting police to arrest her family members.

The death was reported earlier this week by a local Italian newspaper, Giornale di Brescia, amid conflicting reports that attributed her killing to refusing an arranged marriage or a sudden illness 10 days earlier.

Cheema graduated from high school in Brescia, receiving Italian citizenship last September. She opened an agency that handled paperwork for driver’s licences but it closed a while later. She returned to Pakistan in November.

According to Italian media, she was in love with a man from Brescia who like her was a second-generation immigrant with Italian citizenship.