UK: Mehmet Goran, found guilty of 15-year-old daughter Tulay’s honor killing (UPDATED)

Mehmet Goren has been found guilty of killing his 15-year-old daughter, Tulay

An update on this story. From Sky News:

Mehmet Goren was told he must serve at least 22 years behind bars after being convicted of the murder of his daughter Tulay.

She was killed in January 1999 after her father – described as a “psychotic bully” – discovered her romance with a man from another branch of Islam.

Tulay’s body has never been found. Her sister Nulay Guler has called on 49-year-old Goren to end the family’s nightmare and reveal what he had done with her body.

A jury at the Old Bailey in London heard that Goren terrorised his family, on one occasion trying to gas them and on another trying to inject his wife Hanim with rat poison.

An affectionate guy, isn’t he?

When he discovered Tulay’s relationship with Halil Unal he became furious – partly because he could not marry her off for a price of £5,000 and partly because Mr Unal was a Sunni Muslim, while the Gorens followed the Alevi branch of Islam.

Half mean, half bully. What a mixture!

Telegraph adds:

He was cleared of conspiracy to murder Halil Unal, Tulay’s former boyfriend who survived being attacked with an axe by Mehmet, two weeks after the schoolgirl vanished.

Well, what a relief. Now, everybody can be much calmer…

UPDATE:

Europe cracks down on honor killings @ Chesler Chronicles.

Police “missed opportunity” regarding honor killing of Muslim girl @ Vlad Teples.

US: Copts’ petition to Obama

Will he listen?

Thnaks to Chris.

Spain: Italian Prosecutors’ report showed AQIM recruitment

El País (Translation T&P, being un update on this story):

“Spain is the last ring of Salafism in Europe“. This appears written in a confidential report of the Italian Prosecutor’s office from 2001 and sums up the huge spread of this Islamist group in the country. This same group has kidnapped 3 volunteers in Mauritania.

A group funded and formed by recruits belonging to different cells and their supporters in Spain. A group which has its more productive and comfortable European basis in Spain, after France.

Last reports sent to Spanish Government by the National Inteligence Center (CNI), the General Police and Civil Guard Information Office point out that Spain is a “recruitment ground” and “constant source of funding” of AQIM (Al-Qaeda for an Islamic Maghreb). There are around 30 open investigations now in Spain about Islamist terrorism which have this group as their target.

The author of this Italian report about Salafism explained how since the late 90s, the leaders in Europe of the Hassan Hattab’s cells, the then leader of the Salafist Group for the Preaching and Combat (GSPC), ended up taking refuge in Spain, attracted like a magnet.The members of AQIM that kidnapped Alicia Gómez, Roque Pascual and Albert Villalta since Nov 29th, have a lot of “brothers” that are now waiting to be judged or imprisoned for belonging to this “organization”, according to Penitentiary Institution’s sources. Most of them are Algerians, but there are also Moroccans and Tunisians.

AQ: Al-Zawahiri’s wife on women

AFP:

The wife of Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has appealed to Muslim women not to join the jihad themselves but to support their menfolk in holy war, US monitoring groups said on Thursday.

In a letter released by Al-Qaeda’s media arm As-Sahab entitled “A Message to the Muslim Sisters,” Omayma Hassan Ahmed Mohammed Hassan also called on the female faithful to resist Western pressure to shun the hijab, or headscarf, the monitors said.

Well what did you expect? What could Al-Zawahiri have said IF she said she thinks otherwise?

Chechenya: the signs of the Islamic revival

Reuters, thanks to MAS:

Though polygamy is illegal in Russia, the southern Muslim region of Chechnya encourages the practice, arguing it is allowed by sharia law and the Koran, Islam’s holiest book.

…Political analysts say that in exchange for successfully hunting out Islamist fighters, the Kremlin turns a blind eye to Kadyrov’s Muslim-inspired rules.

Today Grozny’s cafes hold men sipping smuggled beer out of teacups as alcohol has been all but banned, single-sex schools and gyms are becoming the norm and women must cover their heads in government buildings.

Clad in a tight hijab, Asya Malsagova, who advises Kadyrov on human rights issues and heads a state council dealing with the rights of Chechen prisoners, told Reuters: “We believe every woman should have a choice — but we prefer she covers up.”

Against the backdrop of a bubbling Islamist insurgency, Islam’s revival has also brought violence against those who do not live by sharia law in the North Caucasus — a region the Kremlin has described as its biggest political domestic problem.

…Dirt roads lead the way to Chechnya’s first camel farm, about 55 km (34 miles) northwest of Grozny, where 46 of the two-humped creatures munch on salt and grass while they are groomed to be gifts for dowries and religious holidays.

Considered holy animals in Islam, they sell for 58,000 roubles ($1,886) each, said Umar Guchigov, the director of the farm, which opened just over a year ago under Kadyrov’s command, and plans are in place to build three more in Chechnya.

Camels, polygamy, shariah law (and persecution of those who don’t live under it), sex seggregation and veils. What a perspective…

UK: Jurors begin fourth day of deliberations on honor killing trial

Press Association:

Jurors trying three men from north-east London accused of the “honour killing” of a 15-year-old girl have begun a fourth day of deliberations.

Tulay Goren is said to have been murdered by her father Mehmet and uncles Ali and Cuma in January 1999 because she fell in love with another man.

Mehmet Goren, 49, of Navestock Crescent, Woodford Green, Cuma Goren, 43, of Evesham Avenue, Walthamstow, and Ali Goren, 56, of Brettenham Road, Walthamstow, deny the charge.

All three defendants also deny an allegation of conspiracy to murder Tulay’s boyfriend Halil Unal.

Jurors in the case began their deliberations last week at the end of the two-month Old Bailey trial.

Wife in Tulay Goren’s “honor killing” trial breaks decades of silence @ Times.

Teenage girl “murdered by father” @ BBC.