“She was the best mother in the world,” said the son. The 14-year-old once looked urgently into the camera during the judicial interrogation, which was carried out around four months after the murder of Maryam H. as an image and sound recording: “I would like to ask why you do something like that.”
That has nothing to do with honor, “but with dishonor,” according to the interrogation played before the district court on Friday. Of his mother’s brothers facing murder charges, he said, “They’re the worst thing that can happen.”
Sayed Yousuf H. and Seyed Mahdi H. from Afghanistan – according to their statements 27 and 23 years old – are said to have lured their sister out of the house on July 13, 2021 and killed her in an unknown location. They brought the body to Bavaria in a suitcase and buried it.
Prosecutors allege that they killed their 34-year-old sister because she “contrary to the morals of the defendants followed a partly modern lifestyle” in which she defied the brothers’ orders and also had a romantic relationship, the indictment says . The brothers have so far remained silent in the process.
Maryam H. – as a 16-year-old she was forced into marriage in Afghanistan, she got divorced in Berlin in 2018 – lived with her children Amir and Dilara (names have been changed) in a refugee camp. According to the children, the brothers repeatedly interfered violently in their lives and monitored their mother. “Mother was enslaved after her divorce, I couldn’t do anything, I was a child,” said Amir.
“We were afraid of them,” Amir said. Her mother was beaten, insulted and put under psychological pressure. In the end, the uncles came every weekend. “You were really mean to mom,” said the four-year-old sister. “Mahdi also pushed me, pulled my hair, gave me a cuff.” Yousuf H. wanted to force her to wear a headscarf – “but I don’t want that”. The children wanted their mother to go to the police about the abuse they had witnessed. She refused and said: “It’s my brothers, I love my brothers, they had a difficult time.” The process continues on Wednesday.
