Ehe brothers Yousuf H. and Mahdi H. are accused by the Berlin public prosecutor’s office of a horrific crime: on July 13 of last year they are said to have murdered their sister, the 34-year-old Afghan Maryam H., in the name of “honor”. .
“On the day of the crime, the accused acted on the injured party in such a way that they throttled her, choked her and cut her throat with sharp force,” the indictment says. On Wednesday, the first day of the hearing came before the Berlin district court.
The murder took place because Maryam H. “contrary to the moral concepts of the accused, pursued a partially more modern lifestyle,” said prosecutor Antonia Ernst, homicide detective in the department for capital crimes.
The accused Yousuf H. on Wednesday in the district court of Berlin
Source: imago images/Olaf Wagner
H. had defied the instructions of her brothers, who were 25 and 22 at the time, and had a romantic relationship after their divorce, although the accused had forbidden her to do so. Her sister’s way of life did not correspond to the “archaic ideas of honor and the image of women” of the brothers, the public prosecutor had already announced at the time of the indictment.
After the murder, the two men, who came to Germany as asylum seekers in 2013 and 2015, are said to have taken the body in a trolley case by taxi to a Berlin long-distance train station and from there to Bavaria. The body was buried there.
maryam h
Source: private
Images from a surveillance camera at Berlin-Südkreuz train station in July 2021 show the men carrying a baggy suitcase to the train. A blood and corpse detection dog showed “report behavior” in the trunk of the taxi, on a chair in the next room of the accused Mahdi H. and on an escalator at Südkreuz station, which the accused also used. A piece of disposable glove, on which the DNA of the accused Mahdi H. could be found, was stuck to an adhesive tape that was attached to the right wrist of the corpse. Shortly before the act, Yousuf H. googled “Suitcase up to 70kg Berlin”.
“Medieval World View”
The public prosecutor assumes the following history: Maryam H. is said to have been forced into marriage at the age of 16 in Afghanistan. The marriage produced a daughter and a son. The children are now ten and 14 years old, joint plaintiffs in the process and go to school in Berlin. In 2018, the marriage was dissolved under German law after repeated acts of violence by the husband.
Maryam H. fell in love with a psychologist from Iran who works as a family counselor in Berlin. She tried to keep the relationship a secret from her brothers. In vain. When they found them together in their apartment, they are said to have hit their friend and threatened them with knives. There was a clear message: the contact had to be broken off.
H’s friend will testify at the trial. He told the police that Yousuf H. threatened to kill him if he didn’t stay away from Maryam H. He said there that the brothers were not religious, but had a “medieval world view”.
According to the investigation, after these threats, massive surveillance of those later killed began: they constantly called her and her son, checked her whereabouts to prevent her from meeting with men or girlfriends, gave her sister and her children rules of conduct , bullied and beat her. Both children were questioned by video in November last year, and they are said to be spared participation in the process.
At the time, they reported that their uncles regularly came to their mother’s apartment on weekends. There they were served and cooked by Maryam H. and her daughter – and beat them if instructions were not followed. According to his own statements, the boy should be brought up “to be the man in the house” and also control his mother.
There had been repeated humiliations, Maryam H. had to let her brothers insult her as a “whore”. The brothers are said to have demanded that their little niece also wear a headscarf. Because H. refused, she was beaten.
So far, around 50 witnesses have been named for the trial, including numerous detectives and friends of the murdered. In the police interrogations, they said that Maryam H. liked an open and modern way of life in Germany.
This photo also shows Maryam H.
Source: private
She would have liked to have removed her headscarf permanently, but the brothers did not allow this. Tight-fitting clothing was also not tolerated. In the presence of her brothers, she would have made sure to wear a headscarf and loose clothing.
In January 2020, Maryam H. even went to the police. At that time, a video of her appeared that showed her drunk and dancing in a shisha bar. At the time, she told a chief inspector that she was afraid her brothers would kill her if they saw the video.
Defense attorney accuses “prejudgment”
The first day of the hearing on Wednesday was dedicated to the reading of the indictment and defense motions. The two accused only provided information about their personal details. They were silent on the allegations. The spokesman for the defense of the younger accused, Mirko Röder, complained to journalists about “prejudice” by politicians.
The then SPD top candidate for the election to the Berlin House of Representatives and today’s Governing Mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffey (SPD), spoke of an “honor killing” after the crime, and the then Senator for Social Affairs Elke Breitenbach (left) of a “femicide”.
“It was an absurd debate on the backs of two defendants. Two refugees who, as the weakest members of society, are in custody and cannot defend themselves,” said Röder before the trial began. During a break in the hearing, he said: “There is no crime scene, no murder weapon and no motive. The motif is poetry, write that down.”
In addition, the defense requested that the lawyer Roland Weber be dismissed as a representative of the private accessory prosecutor, since he works on an honorary basis as the Victims’ Commissioner of the State of Berlin. “The defense assumes that the state is represented twice in the process,” said Röder. The court has not yet ruled on the application. 35 further hearing dates are scheduled for the trial until August.
Brothers are said to have transported their dead sister in a suitcase
Berlin investigators have arrested two men on suspicion of a so-called honor killing of their sister. They are said to have taken the body to Bavaria in a suitcase by train and buried it there.
As the children’s legal representative, their father, the ex-husband of the murdered woman, also took part in the hearing on Wednesday. Myria Böhmecke, who observed the process for the women’s rights organization Terre des Femmes, was “very surprised” by WELT: Her ex-husband is said to have stalked Maryam H., and he was then given a judicial ban on approaching her.
“The case of Maryam H. is not an isolated case,” said Böhmecke. Terre des Femmes identified for the years 2020 and 2021 using a press evaluation 25 cases of attempted or completed murders in the name of “honor” in Germany. “This number is just the tip of the iceberg,” Böhmecke continued. “Many girls and women have already suffered massively from patriarchal violence, forced marriage and early marriage before committing such an act.”