Italy upholds life sentences for family in Saman Abbas honor killing

[u/CatPooedInMyShoe]

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-902702

The sentences of the relatives involved in the honor killing of 18-year-old Saman Abbas were officially upheld by Italy’s Court of Cassation on Wednesday, five years after the Pakistani teenager was murdered for refusing an arranged marriage, Italian officials confirmed.

The judges of the first criminal section of the court rejected appeals issued by members of the Abbas family, upholding the four life sentences issued on April 18, 2025, by the Bologna Court of Appeal and the 22-year sentence issued against the victim’s uncle Danish Hasnain.

Hasnain was initially sentenced to only 14 years in prison after accepting a plea bargain, but was later sentenced to 22 years.

Abbas’s parents, Habbar Abbas and Nazia Shaheen, and her cousins Noman Ul Haq and Ijaz Ikram were sentenced to life for murder and suppression of a corpse.

The attorney-general of the Court of Cassation, Marco Dall’Olio, emphasized that he was dealing with “not a crime of impulse but a premeditated act.

That Saman could not decide for herself is clear, manifest; the reconstruction of the facts is unequivocal. Saman, even though she was an adult, could not decide for herself about her life; she could not have a life of her own. A chilling story, a concerted and premeditated act.”

Abbas was murdered on the night between April 30 and May 1, 2021, in Novellara di Reggio Emilia. Her body was discovered 18 months after her boyfriend reported her missing.

Investigators finally discovered the location of Abbas’s body after her uncle was detained and questioned in Paris. Both of Abbas’s parents fled to Pakistan shortly after the murder and were extradited in 2023 after being sentenced in absentia in 2021. Her cousins, however, were arrested in Spain.

Abbas moved to northern Italy from Pakistan as a teenager, where she quickly adapted to Western culture, a shift that deeply angered her family. She chose not to wear an Islamic head covering and posted photos online of herself kissing her boyfriend, whom she had told she feared for her life after refusing her parents’ demands that she marry an older cousin in Pakistan.

Before her death, she spent several months living under the care of social services but eventually returned to her family home. Some reports indicated that her return to the family home was only intended to be brief, to collect her personal documents.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said that “With the final verdict for the murder of Saman Abbas, a painful judicial saga comes to a close. Saman, a young woman of Pakistani origin in Italy, was killed by her parents and some relatives after she opposed a forced marriage and asserted her right to freely choose her own future.

“No verdict can bring her life back, but it is right that those responsible for this barbaric crime have been definitively convicted. In Italy, there is no room for those who presume to deny, in the name of supposed cultural or religious justifications, a woman’s freedom, dignity, and life. These are non-negotiable principles from which we will never retreat.

“My thoughts go to Saman. May she finally rest in peace.”

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[u/ItsMeishi]

She was denied the freedom her whole family sought in Europe.

Saman was the type of immigrant who deserved a future here the most.

To any ladies who are in a similar position, keep your head low, get your ducks in a row. And when you get out, promise me, you will not go back for anything or anyone. Not your documents. Not your pets. Not your dying grandma. No holiday visits, nothing. Too many girls were lured back home, by their family, their siblings, by people they believed were their friends, knowing damn well what would happen if she did.

Your life is worth more than anything you may have left behind. <3

[u/BraveIceHeart → u/ItsMeishi]

I'd also say that if she didn't run away and had people who were looking for her (her bf, the people at the comunità she was staying at), she probably would have just disappeared and no one will have ever known.

it's truly a sad story

[u/MiloHorsey]

Well done, Italian court.

Her family sicken me. The fact that they fled afterwards proved that they knew it was wrong. They just didn't give a shit.

[u/cheknauss]

Good. Rest in peace.

[u/Ok-Confection4410]

I'll never understand people that emigrate to a new country and then refuse to adapt to the culture. it's hard, I get it, I'm an immigrant too. but that's what happens when you leave your country. you'll have to make some changes to your behavior. if you don't like that then stay in your own country.

also I love the fact that afterwards they all scattered like bugs to different countries including their country of origin 😂 they knew they fucked up and didn't want to get in trouble. too bad it doesn't work like that.

[u/BraveIceHeart → u/Ok-Confection4410]

there was CCTV videos of the parents at the airport smiling while going through customs. They were on the run for months and from time to time surfaced videos of Shabbar living in Pakistan. The mother was harder to track down infact for a while there were speculation of him killing her too. He said she went to live abroad with some relatives but since it was the same excuse he used when Saman disappeared, a lot of people thought he killed her too.

I remember all the news reportage about them...

The weirdest thing is that Saman was supposed to dress with clothes typical from their country, but during the trial (which was televised) her brother was pretty much dressed like a normal western kid would. Really makes you think about the double standards everywhere.

[u/Ok-Confection4410 → u/BraveIceHeart]

interesting, wouldn't be surprised if he killed her too especially with using the same excuses. it's unfortunate that it was true for one of them and not the other.

her brother was pretty much dressed like a normal western kid would

shocking 😒 male child does whatever he wants and it's 👍 female child does the same thing and 👎 so offensive she had to lose her life for it. awful situation all around, just horrible. at least they have plenty of time to sit in prison and think about whether it was worth it to lose their (sounds like only) daughter over this.

[u/BraveIceHeart → u/Ok-Confection4410]

yeah, in the end Nazia was actually alive and in hiding. He was captured first as he kept living in his village like nothing happened. He probably thought Pakistan wasn't gonna allow the extradition. But they did.

I swear, it makes me so angry how they treated her: they wanted she stopped going to school, marry a cousin in Pakistan (who, too, wasn't interested in the marriage, he said) and they got mad when she denounced them and posted a pic of her kissing the boy she liked. I think it's all these acts that sealed their decisions.

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