'HONOR' KILLING FOR GOD
DAD'S SICK 'CONFESSION'
A Muslim father accused of murdering his daughter in a so-called "honor killing" told cops God would look out for him, as he confessed to the grisly strangulation, authorities said yesterday.
"God will protect me. God is watching," Pakistani immigrant Chaudhry Rashid allegedly confessed to cops. "I strangled my daughter."
For comments on Al-Azhar book which sanctions killing of off springs link
At a preliminary hearing yesterday, Detective Mike Christian told a judge Rashid copped to killing his daughter on July 6 with a bungee cord because she had filed divorce papers and was having an extramarital affair.
Christian said Rashid was found sitting in his driveway smoking a cigarette when cops arrested him.
Rashid, 56, waddled into a Georgia courtroom yesterday in shackles to fight murder charges in the death of his only daughter, Sandeela Kanwal, 25, at his home in Jonesboro, an Atlanta suburb.
Kanwal, who worked at a Wal-Mart, wanted to escape her loveless six-year marriage to a Chicago man, Majid Latif, cops said.
Rashid went into a murderous rage after apparently growing tired of numerous arguments with his daughter, concerned that their clashing cultural values would reflect poorly on him and his family, said the detective.
Rashid listened intently to the court proceeding as a court-appointed interpreter translated the grim details of his daughter's murder into his native Urdu.
Defense attorney Alan Begner asked the judge to throw out the case because of a lack of evidence, but he was turned down.
He also downplayed the notion of "honor killing."
"I have no comment about an honor killing or whether it's true or relevant at all," said Begner. "It does a disservice to the man, his family and his children."
Hanny Lightfoot-Klein, who has worked in the Middle East and Africa and written books on honor killings and genital mutilation in the Muslim world, had another view.
"They do not leave their customs behind when they cross borders, the customs come right with them," she said.
"If any woman in the family in any way does something that dishonors the family, the whole family is dishonored, they are the laughingstock of the whole community, because they 'don't know how to control their women.'
"And the only way this blight on their honor can be eradicated is to kill the one who has committed the crime."