A mother has been convicted of forcing her 20-year-old daughter to marry an older man before he murdered her.
Sakina Muhammad Jan of Victoria’s north faced a two-week trial in the County Court after denying coercing her daughter into marrying a man from Western Australia in 2019.
She was accused with causing another individual to enter into a forced marriage.
Prosecutors stated Ruqia Haidari told her mother she did not want to marry Mohammad Ali Halimi and accused Jan of turning over her daughter in exchange for a $10,000 dowry.
Halimi murdered his new wife in their Perth home in January 2020 and is currently serving a life sentence in WA, with a minimum of 19 years.
When Jan attempted to arrange the marriage, prosecutor Darren Renton told the jury that the young woman had “lost her value” as a result of her divorce.
After a matchmaker got involved, a meeting was set up with Halimi, who flew from Perth to Shepparton on June 1, 2019, to meet Haidari for the first time.
Haidari married him in a makeshift Islamic ceremony less than two weeks after their meeting.
She had informed several individuals she did not want to marry Halimi, including two driving instructors, a teacher, a therapist, and the police.
When she informed her mother she did not want to marry him, Jan responded it was not her decision.
“Are you my mother or am I your mother?” Jan assured the jury, “I can make decisions for you.” Haidari’s brother arranged for an officiant two days later, and she and Halimi were married permanently.
They had an official wedding ceremony in November, and she moved to Perth with Halimi later that month.
The jury deliberated for slightly more than a day before returning their guilty decision to the Melbourne court on Thursday afternoon.
The jury was not told about Haidari’s murder throughout the trial, but now that a verdict has been reached, these details can be divulged.
