An Afghan Muslim man who stabbed his daughter in an Adelaide carpark for dating a Christian man told his family “she deserved it”.
South Australia’s Supreme Court this week heard the father tracked his daughter down to Sefton Plaza with family members – including the victim’s mother, sister and brother-in-law – who restrained her while he stabbed her repeatedly in the abdomen in November 2021.
They then drove her to the family home where she was put in the shower bleeding profusely, and prosecutor Michael Foundas said she only survived because eyewitnesses called emergency services who arrived in time to save her, ABC News reported.
The father was caught on police bodycam saying in his native Pashtu “why did she do this?” and “she deserves this”, the court heard. He was also heard calling his daughter a “prostitute”.
“[The father] makes a comment to the effect that ‘he should have finished her off’,” a prosecution document states.
He pleaded guilty to an aggravated charge of causing serious harm, while the other members of the family pleaded guilty to a non-aggravated charge of causing harm with intent, and unlawful imprisonment.
Murder charges were dropped by prosecutors as part of a plea deal last year.
The victim was previously arranged to marry her cousin in northern Pakistan at age 17 but had refused, and after beginning a relationship with a Christian man she met at university was warned by family members “you need to break up, if your father finds out you’ll die”.
She suffered a lacerated liver, perforated kidney, and internal bleeding as a result of the stabbing.
UPDATE: On July 29 the father was jailed for 14 years and three months with a non-parole period of nine years, and the mother to five years and five months, with a non-parole period of three years and two months.
The eldest brother was sentenced to nine years and five months with a non-parole period of six years, and the sister and brother-in-law were given suspended sentences along with a younger brother who helped track down his sister.
