VIDEO | Saman, the expert: “Saman’s mother knows what happened that night, the trial will change”
The Italian-Pakistani journalist Ahmad Ejaz, who covered the case of six girls killed in Italy for cultural reasons, talks about the Saman case. He has no doubts: "Murders of this type always happen in groups. The mother knows what happened"
ROME – “With the extradition of Saman’s mother to Italy, which I hope will arrive soon, the process will certainly change. She knows what happened that night“. Thus Ahmad Ejaz, Italian-Pakistani journalist and cultural mediator, interviewed by Dire regarding the latest developments regarding the arrest in Pakistan on May 31st of Nazia Shaheen, Saman Abbas’ mother, the 18-year-old Pakistani resident in Novellara killed in 2021 because she had opposed to forced marriagewith an older cousin. The woman, a fugitive, was hidden in a village on the border with Kashmir, and had been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Reggio Emilia court for the murder of her daughter. There was an international arrest warrant hanging over her.
READ ALSO: Saman case, the judges: “Killed because it was feared she would flee again”
“Until now we don’t know what happened that night and the judges don’t know– adds Ejaz- I think Saman’s two cousins were also involved in the killing.” Homicides of this type, says the cultural mediator, are almost always carried out in groups and involve both women and men of the family: the former with a passive role, the latter with an active role. As a journalist, over the years, I have followed the events of six Pakistani girls all killed in Italyin the name of a forced marriage and all the immigrants accused of the crimes they come from the same limited area of Pakistan, from Mandi Bahauddin to Punja. So everything is clear.”
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SAMAN KILLED IN THE NAME OF PAKISTANI CULTURE
even in Saman’s case, it was a “group of people from a village in Pakistan (where the father comes from) who decided that this girl should be killed, because she had opposed a forced arranged marriage. I am sure that in this crime the cultural aspect has a great weight, despite the judges (of the Court of Assizes, ed.) deciding not to consider it. as a motive. But it is only by questioning the culture that we will be able to save the next Saman.”
“SAMAN WANTED A LIFE WITH ITALIAN BOYFRIEND, I READ THE WHATSAPP MESSAGES”
According to the Italian-Pakistani journalist, it was therefore in the name of culture that they decided to kill Saman: “I translated the documents that arrived in Italy, in particular all the WhatsApp messages that Saman had exchanged with her boyfriend Saqib Ayub: they wanted to live like all the boys do in Italy, they dreamed of getting marriedand certainly not a forced arranged marriage”. Finally Ejaz concludes: “I hope that justice will be done for Saman Abbas, because this justice, to date, is still incomplete”. In addition to Nazia Shaheen, Saman’s mother, Saman’s father, Shabbar Abbas, is also involved and sent to trial on charges of kidnapping, murder and concealment of a corpse. , uncle Danish Hasnain andcousins Ikram Ijaz and Noumanoulaq Noumanulaq. Shabbar was arrested and is in prison in Italy together with the other three accused. Now we await the extraction of the mother in our country.