IRAQ : COURT UPHOLDS CHRISTIAN GIRLS MURDER SENTENCE
7/26/07 Iraq (Compass Direct News) Iraq s Kurdish regional high court has reduced jail time for a teenager who fatally stabbed her uncle as he beat her for converting to Christianity and shaming the family by working in public.
After reviewing the case for more than two months, the court in Erbil on April 30 upheld an earlier decision by Dohuks juvenile court that Asya Ahmad Muhammad was guilty of killing her uncle, though she acted in defense of herself and others. Clearing her of an original conviction for premeditated murder, the court reduced the 15-year-old girls sentence from five to three-and-a-half years.
In a written statement submitted to the regional high court in February, Muhammads lawyer, Akram Al-Najar, had argued that it was incorrect to try his client for intentional premeditated killing under article 406 of the Iraqi penal code.
According to Al-Najar, the high court agreed in part, changing the sentence to article 405, which covers non-premeditated intentional killing.
Muhammad stabbed her uncle in July 2006, when he came to her familys kitchen utensil store outside of Dohuk and began beating her, her mother and brother. After Muhammads mother fled the premises, Muhammads uncle began hitting her with one hand while tearing at her hair with the other, Al-Najar said.
The lawyer said that his clients head had been forced down, and that she had grabbed the first thing that her hand came to rest upon, a kitchen knife, striking blindly upwards and accidentally driving the knife through her uncles heart
According to Al-Najar, his client should have been tried under article 411-1 of the Iraqi penal code, which prescribes three months to five years in prison for accidental killing.
But local Christians said they thought Muhammads sentence was light, considering that it was culturally acceptable for an uncle to beat his niece.
She is actually very lucky that her sentence was not longer, one Christian said. The penalty for murder is death, though as a minor she would have been given a life sentence.
Muhammads jail time also means that she does not have to fear reprisal attacks from her relatives.
It will be dangerous for Maria when she gets out of jail, Muhammads mother, Mayan Jaffar Ibrahim, told Compass. We are afraid that another uncle will come again and do the same thing. We might have to change houses.
Muhammads uncle had previously tried to kill her father five times because of his conversion to Christianity, Ibrahim said. After her uncles death, Muhammads relatives, led by her grandmother, demanded that her father be killed.
Later the grandmother agreed to reduce her demands, requiring a large sum of money and Muhammads death.
Ibrahim said that for the past four months, their relatives, who live only 30 minutes away, have ceased to threaten them but are still angry and demanding US$60,000 to compensate for the loss of Muhammads uncle
The knowledge that jail is the safest place for her daughter is of little consolation to Ibrahim, who misses Muhammad deeply
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