A father who drugged and strangled his daughter to death told police he did it to “wipe away the humiliation” and that there was a crazy loophole that might let him get away with it.
Taiba Alali was allegedly abducted by the unidentified man in January when she travelled from Turkey, where she currently resides, to her native Iraq to cheer on her nation’s football team in the Arabian Gulf Cup.
Before being allegedly drugged and carried back to the family home in Al-Qadisiyyah Governorate, the influencer had agreed to meet her mother at a friend’s house in Baghdad. She had been shocked when the entire family showed up.
According to local media, when she awoke from the suspected drugging, she reportedly quarrelled vehemently with her father.
According to rumours, he later entered her room while she was sleeping and choked her to death.
Unidentified in local media, her father handed himself in to the authorities and confessed to killing his own daughter in order to “wipe away the shame.”
Although the police are currently looking into him for murder, under Iraq’s penal code he could avoid jail time by claiming the death was a “honour killing.”
According to the code, courts may impose light punishments on those who commit homicide out of “honourable intentions” or after being provoked.
Article 409 of the Iraqi Penal Code includes “honour” as a defence for violent crimes against family members, and the Code permits mild punishments for “honour killings” on the grounds of provocation or if the accused had “honourable motivations,” according to a March 2021 Home Office assessment on the code.
“The law does not provide guidance as to what ‘honourable motives’ are and, therefore, leaves scope for wide interpretation.”
Taiba had fled her homeland in 2017 to start a new life in Turkey and had planned to wed her Syrian-born boyfriend.
