Muslim 'honor killing' and a hit list near Houston

Houston Chronicle:
Witnesses in the case of a Montgomery County family charged in the 2012 deaths of two people in what authorities have described as "honor killings" were placed on a hit list and are afraid for their safety, Harris County prosecutors said Friday.

During a court hearing for 37-year-old Shmou Ali Alrawabdeh, charged with murder and accused of assisting in the killing of Gelerah Bagherzadeh, Harris County assistant district attorneys told state District Judge Jan Krocker authorities had discovered a "hit list," that included the names of witnesses in the case.

Prosecutors did not comment on who created the list or who it belonged to, but they said the names included Houston Police Department and Harris County Sheriff's Office homicide investigators and a federal agent. The list also included relatives of Alrawabdeh's son-in-law, Coty Beavers, who was shot to death about 11 months after Bagherzadeh.

Alrawabdeh's husband, Ali Awad Mahmoud Irsan, 57, is charged with capital murder, accused of killing both Bagherzadeh and Beavers. Isran's, 21-year-old son, Nasim Irsan, is also charged with murder, accused of assisting in Bagherzadeh's death in January 2012.

Prosecutors say Irsan, a devout Muslim, disapproved of the marriage between his daughter, Nesreen Irsan, and Beavers, a Christian. They alleged that Irsan blamed 30-year-old Bagherzadeh, a Christian convert from Iran who was his daughter's best friend, for the marriage. At Irsan's court hearing on Thursday, prosecutors said he called his daughter and threatened her.

"He said, 'I killed that (expletive), and you're next. No one insults my honor as a Muslim and gets away with it,' " Assistant Harris County District attorney Tammy Thomas told Krocker, who also heard Irsan's case.

Nadia Irsan, 30, another of Irsan's daughters, is charged with felony stalking, accused of tracking her sister for her father.

Prosecutors revealed the information about a hit list after Krocker asked why the witnesses in Alrawabdeh's case were not being named in court.
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There is more.

The facts as presented by the prosecution show pure evil in the name of a religion.   It appears to have been a family enterprise if what the prosecution alleges is true.   Someone evidently thought it was also honorable to kill law enforcement officers investigating the murders.  This is a case that should be followed.

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