TORONTO — A father, mother and their son, all convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of four members of their family, are asking Ontario's highest court for new trials.
In documents filed with the Ontario Court of Appeal, Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed argue, among other issues, that their trial judge should not have admitted evidence from an expert on so-called honour killings.
The three were convicted in January 2012 of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of daughters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and Mohammad Shafia's first wife in a polygamous marriage, fifty-two-year-old Rona Amir Mohammad.
The victims' bodies were found on June 30, 2009, in a car at the bottom of a canal in Kingston, Ont.
The Crown at the trial asserted the murders were committed after the girls shamed the family by dating and acting out, and Amir Mohammad was simply disposed of.
The trial judge described the killings as being motivated by the Shafias' "twisted concept of honour."
