Saman Abbas: mother arrested in Pakistan for murder of teenager

A woman convicted of murdering her teenage daughter in Italy has reportedly been arrested in Pakistan after three years on the run.

An Italian court sentenced Nazia Shaheen to life in absentia last December for the murder of 18-year-old Saman Abbas in 2021.

Shaheen and her husband, Shabbar Abbas, killed their daughter after she refused an arranged marriage.

The two men then fled the country, and Abbas was eventually found and extradited from Pakistan in August 2023.

But Shaheen, 51, had avoided arrest until this week, when she was allegedly found in a village on the Kashmir border in an operation involving Interpol and Pakistan's federal police, officials said. sources at the Italian news agency Ansa.

She appeared in court in Islamabad, the country's capital, on Friday for extradition proceedings, Italian newspapers reported.

The so-called honor killing perpetrated by his family against Saman Abbas in late April 2021 shocked Italy. After her disappearance, the Italian Union of Islamic Communities issued a fatwa – a religious regulation – rejecting forced marriages.

The teenager had emigrated with her family from Pakistan to the agricultural town of Novellara in 2016, according to Italian reports.

After finding out Saman Abbas was dating, the family had wanted her to go to Pakistan for an arranged marriage in 2020, but she refused.

She then spent several months under the protection of social services, but returned to the family home in Novellara seven months later, after being tricked into returning, according to Italian reports.

Prosecutors said that's when the teen disappeared.

Saman Abbas' body was finally found in November 2021, near a farm not far from where the family lived, after her uncle revealed where she had been buried.

An autopsy revealed that she had suffered a broken neck, possibly as a result of strangulation.