Jail for 'honour killing' family

[ShadesWolf]

From the BBC website.

A father who ordered his two sons to carry out the "honour killing" of his daughter's boyfriend after she became pregnant has been jailed for life.
The body of electrical engineering student Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, 19, was found with 46 stab wounds in Oxford on 20 November last year.

Bangladeshi waiter Chomir Ali, 44, must serve a minimum of 20 years in jail.

Sons Mujibar Rahman, 19, and Mamnoor Rahman, 16, were given minimum terms of 16 and 14 years respectively.

'Shame and dishonour'

Mr Justice Gross, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, said it was a "cold-blooded intentional killing".

He told the three, who were all present in the dock: "Far from vindicating your family's honour you have permanently dishonoured your family with the stain of murder."

During the trial, Oxford Crown Court heard the two sons killed Mr Ghorbani-Zarin due to the "shame and dishonour" brought on the family by his relationship with Manna Begum.

The pair met in 2003 through school friends, who described them as devoted to each other, with Miss Begum becoming pregnant in August 2004.

But Miss Begum's father had planned for her to have an arranged marriage.

So do you think the sentence is enough. Or should have been more ?
Personally I think it is to little and should have been life without parole.

[Marcellus]

Personally I think it is to little and should have been life without parole.

I don't like the idea of life imprisonment with no hope of release - it seems to remove one of the key reasons the prison service exists - to reform - since anybody who does reform can never be released. And whilst you might argue that a person will never reform, I think that you cannot be sure of what a person may be like in twenty years' time. I think that for crimes like this the option of life long imprisonment should be available, but there should always be the possibilty of release.

[Dâriûsh]

Arash Ghorbani? He must have been an Iranian.

[ShadesWolf]

cold-blooded intentional killing".

was found with 46 stab wounds

This was cold blooded intentional planned murder.
Why should they be released, as far as Im concerned they should all be executed for the crime.

[Marcellus]

This was cold blooded intentional planned murder.
Why should they be released, as far as Im concerned they should all be executed for the crime.

They should only be released if they have clearly reformed. Otherwise, they can stay in jail.

[Crazed Rabbit]

A father...has been jailed for life... must serve a minimum of 20 years in jail.

Hmm. You've got a different concept of 'life' over there it seems.

They should only be released if they have clearly reformed. Otherwise, they can stay in jail.

So, saying you're sorry you killed someone and are now a better person makes the dead come back to life?

Crazed Rabbit

[ShadesPanther]

Hmm. You've got a different concept of 'life' over there it seems.

Crazed Rabbit

It's the same in America. Actually I think it's less

[Marcellus]

So, saying you're sorry you killed someone and are now a better person makes the dead come back to life?

Of course not. Nothing will bring the victim back to life, not imprisonment for the rest of the criminal's life, not the death penalty, nothing. But keeping a reformed person in jail serves no purpose: the person has reformed, so is no longer a threat to society, so keeping the person in prison is only revenge, not justice. Plus, it's wasting tax payers' money.

[GoreBag]

I actually don't see how this is an honour killing.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

she was betrothed to somebody (picked by her family) else and disobeyed her father - that screams insulted family honour to me.

[Strike For The South]

kill em

[Leet Eriksson]

Arash Ghorbani? He must have been an Iranian.

Iranians are natural chick magnets

[DemonArchangel]

Didn't you read the article? It's Bangladeshi.

And Faisal, why do people perform honor killings? (Want a Muslim perspective.)

[Kaiser of Arabia]

It's the same in America. Actually I think it's less

Depends on the degree of murder. Murder in the first is no parole. 2nd and 3rd has parole. 3rd is only like 14-20 years I think. But that's crimes of passion, not premeditated.

[GoreBag]

she was betrothed to somebody (picked by her family) else and disobeyed her father - that screams insulted family honour to me.

That rather screams, "Don't touch my stuff," to me.

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

That rather screams, "Don't touch my stuff," to me.

Well, yeah, you could put it that way too.

Defend my honour, defend my stuff.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Of course not. Nothing will bring the victim back to life, not imprisonment for the rest of the criminal's life, not the death penalty, nothing. But keeping a reformed person in jail serves no purpose: the person has reformed, so is no longer a threat to society, so keeping the person in prison is only revenge, not justice. Plus, it's wasting tax payers' money.

So if a person killed 5 people in one day, then reformed within a week of going to prison, you'd let him out?

And what if somebody killed 7 people 30 years ago, then reformed, but only just got caught? Would you put him in prison at all?

Punishment is justice.

Crazed Rabbit

[Soulforged]

Life in jail is a harsh figure a type from the days of capital punishment, for those countries that have overcome them. It's the equivalent to death penalty, of course it doesn't has the little drawback of no return, but it's still inhumane and only shows that there's no measure to hold the irrationality of men.
The "correct" way to go in my opinion is to give him no more than 18 years, with parole. Of course there's always a "more" correct way to go (but I'll not enter philosophycal in this one.)

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

18 years?
why that number?

[Spetulhu]

Is there anything lower than a kinslayer? Whatever honor you claim to defend is forfeit for killing your own child.

edit: yah, so it was the boyfriend, not the daughter. Quite a surprise. Still a low thing to do.

[Ja'chyra]

You make your choices then live with the consequences.

[English assassin]

As far as the retribution element of the sentence is concerned I think it is long enough.

However this seems to be the sort of case where a deterrent element would also be justified. There are too many of these crimes, as well as the general attitude that you can carry on in Basingstoke just the way you would in Bangladesh, and its lawful in those circumstances to impose an exemplary sentence pour encourager les autres. Or to discourage them in this case.

IMHO the father should have had a whole life tariff.

[Fragony]

Personally I think they should paint his ass red and throw him in a cage with 100 horny baboons and keep him there for the rest of his life. Who the hell do they think they are.

[English assassin]

Personally I think they should paint his ass red and throw him in a cage with 100 horny baboons and keep him there for the rest of his life. Who the hell do they think they are.

Just for the hell of it i think we should have a world government with Frag and Dev Dave as ministers for justice.

Of course we'd need to save the game before we installed them in power so we could go back to the old ways, but you have to admit we'd see some amusing punishments while it lasted.

[lugh]

Pre-meditated murder, death sentence, all three of 'em.

This will amuse some of you, I actually think life (ie until dead) in jail with no parole is too inhumane to use as a punishment.

[Ja'chyra]

Pre-meditated murder, death sentence, all three of 'em.

This will amuse some of you, I actually think life (ie until dead) in jail with no parole is too inhumane to use as a punishment.

Ah, but don't you know we shouldn't be punishing criminals, prison is all about rehabilitation after all his victims are already dead so why worry about them. We should be more concerned with making sure that criminals are really, really sorry and they promise not to do it again, then we can release them in the certain knowledge that we can all sleep soundly in our beds. Apart from the victims of course, but isn't that a small price to pay to know that we have "cured" a murderer of something that was obviously societies fault for putting too much pressure on them.

Don't that make you feel just dandy, if only the rest of humanity could be as enlightened as us.

Next year we can move on to "Rabies, don't kill them embrace them", you might lose half of your family but think of all the mad, sick beasts you will save.

Have a very Merry Christmas all.

[lugh]

And to them I give:

When one person kills another, there is immediate revulsion at the nature of the crime. But in a time so short as to seem indecent to the members of the personal family, the dead person ceases to exist as an identifiable figure. To those individuals in the community of good will and empathy, warmth and compassion, only one of the key actors in the drama remains with whom to commiserate—and that is always the criminal. The dead person ceases to be a part of everyday reality, ceases to exist. She is only a figure in a historic event. We inevitably turn away from the past, toward the ongoing reality. And the ongoing reality is the criminal; trapped, anxious, now helpless, isolated, often badgered and bewildered. He usurps the compassion that is justly his victim’s due. He will steal his victim’s moral constituency along with her life.
-- Willard Gaylin
Too large for my sig , but it about sums up my feelings.

[doc_bean]

It's more than they would have been given in Belgium (probably), so i'd say it's enough. The father should have gotten more perhaps, since he is also partly responsible for ruining the lives of his sons.

The sons, it's sad, but they made their choice.

[Leet Eriksson]

Didn't you read the article? It's Bangladeshi.

And Faisal, why do people perform honor killings? (Want a Muslim perspective.)

They didn't really specify if he was bangladeshi or not (the victim).

As for the aspect of honor in society, its pretty big, when someone is dishonored he is looked down upon by society, which is why they resort to killing the person who caused it(it still happens even in advanced muslim states, like egypt for example, mostly in rural areas).

Rather backwards thinking, at least here when a family are dishonoured, they don't resort to killing, they immediatly dis-own their son/daughter who caused it, still far better than resorting to killing someone, becuase its stated that killing is absolutely forbidden.

[English assassin]

The victim was Iranian if I remeber the coverage correctly.

That was quite a good quote Lugh.