Germany has charged two Afghan brothers with killing their sister. Whom they wanted to punish for her Western ways of living.
Because of Germany’s privacy laws they have been identified as Seyed H. 22 and 26 respectively. They are accused in luring Maryam H. their 34 year-old sister to a Berlin meeting on July 13. Then, they choked, strangled and then cut her throat.
German prosecutors claimed that the brothers dismembered their mother-of-two and took her body with them to train stations later in the day.
Due to Germany’s privacy laws the men are only identified as Seyed H. (22) and Sayed H. (34) for luring Maryam H. (pictured), their sister of 34 years, to Berlin, where they allegedly choked, strangled and cut her throat.
CCTV footage, obtained by German media , appears to show Sayed and Seyed lifting the black duffle bag onto a train at the Südkreuz train station in Berlin.
They are accused of taking a train to Bavaria, then driving through a forest to Sayed’s house near Holzkirchen where they dug a grave for Maryam.
Prosecutors claimed that the men intended to execute their sister “for her Western-oriented life which didn’t correspond with their archaic views of honour, morals and women’s image.”
Prosecutors claimed that the brothers dismembered and took the mother of two to work, then returned with the suitcase containing her body.
Prosecutors added that the prosecutors weren’t ready to accept that she had split from her husband (to whom she was 16 when there were violent incidents) and started a new relationship.
Maryam is the mother of two children, a 10 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. They fled Afghanistan as refugees in 2013 and have since settled in Germany.
They have contradictory statements about what they found inside the bag, which was claimed to contain Maryam’s corpse by prosecutors.
Seyed said that the boxing gloves and dumbbells were in his bag. But Sayad, Sayad’s older brother claimed that clothes and heavier class items were also inside. According to BZ Berlin Newspaper.
Seyed, allegedly also identified his brother and himself as the two men seen in CCTV footage from the Berlin train station.
German media reported that Maryam lived with constant fear of death. According to locals, Maryam’s brothers put pressure on Maryam and attempted to cut her off from other people.
One source told BZ: ‘Maryam was a good person. Because her siblings terrorized her because of her faith, she has felt very afraid since the divorce.
An Afghan woman who lived in the same accommodation as Maryam said: ‘There are men who are just crazy. Because I do not wear a head scarf, I am also concerned that similar things could happen to my family.
They have been held in detention since August 3, and could face life imprisonment if they are convicted for murder.