Last May, two brothers allegedly bound their 18-year-old sister in packing tape, gagged her, and drowned her in a swamp. This was an honour killing, motivated by what the girl’s brothers saw as her ‘westernisation.’ During the trial last week, WhatsApp messages revealed that the family’s main grievances were the fact that she had refused an arranged marriage, had a boyfriend, and had stopped wearing a headscarf. “There is no other solution,” one of the brothers wrote in a message. The girl’s own mother said that she was “a disgrace to the family and deserves to die” and should be “wrapped in a shroud.” In a secretly recorded conversation, one brother said he believed the family had been humiliated by the girl’s behaviour, and the only way out was her death.
