Danes Deal Out Justice for Muslim "Honor Killing"

Two days after a woman was married, she was lured by her aunt to a reconciliation meeting and was murdered by her brother.  You see the family did not approve of the marriage due to religious reasons.  The religion was the "religion of peace" of course. The killing is sickening, but the justice handed out gives helps balance those feelings.  Read below or here from more details.

A Warning to Would-Be Honor Killers

In the first case of its kind in Western Europe, a Danish court has prosecuted an entire family for the honor-killing of an 18-year-old Pakistani immigrant. Will the case set a precedent for other European countries dealing with similar incidents?

The ruling was as historic. Last week, a court in Copenhagen practically convicted an entire family for the role it played in planning and executing the honor-killing of 18-year-old Ghazala Khan. It could set a precedent for the rest of Europe as countries seek to mete out punishment for similar crimes.

The Danish court sentenced the Pakistani immigrant's father to life in prison for his influential role as patriarch in the planning of the murder. The brother who actually carried out the act of murdering Khan has been sentenced to 16 years in prison. Other family members were also slapped with long prison sentences for the role they played in the crime.

The trial rivetted Danes and also drew major international attention. Denmark's Berlingske Tidende called the convictions a "sensation," and the daily Jydske Vestkysten called it a "historic one for the entire world."

Last September, Khan died after her brother shot her, execution style with his pistol in the village of Slagelse. Her Afghan husband -- whom she had married just two days before the shooting -- survived the attack, but only after an emergency operation. The deeply religious Muslim Pakistani immigrant family disapproved of her speedy marriage because it didn't conform with their religious views.

What's most striking about the case is that the court doled out the most stringent punishment to the girl's father, who didn't actively participate in the crime. The court also sentenced the girl's aunt to 14 years in prison for luring the young woman to what she thought would be a reconciliation meeting with her family. Instead, the aunt had tricked her by inviting her neice to her own killing. The aunt will be deported from Denmark as soon as she finishes her sentence. In preparing for the trial, which was based mostly on circumstantial evidence, prosecutors untangled a crime that had been premeditated and meticulously planned by the family.

Prosecutor Jeanette Andersen described the verdict as "very satisfying. It sends a strong message to other families who may be considering similar killings that such cases will not be tolerated in Denmark." Moderate immigrant organizations also issued statements supporting the convictions. Honor killings have "nothing to do with Islam," declared the Danish organization Muslims in Dialogue. "They are cold-blooded indifference."