Parents get life for 'honor killing'

• Tweet

CHESTER, England, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- The parents of a teenager they suffocated in 2003 in a so-called honor killing have been sentenced to life in prison by a British jury.

Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and his wife Farzana, 49, were sentenced in Chester Crown Court to life in prison for the death of their daughter Shafilea, 17, in 2003, Sky News reported Friday.

Shafilea's sister Alesha testified she and her two other siblings saw their parents push Shafilea onto a couch, then suffocate her with a plastic bag Sept. 11, 2003.

The jury heard Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed killed Shafilea because of her refusal to conform to her parent's traditional values.

"Your concern about being shamed in your community was greater than the love of your child," said Justice Roderick Evans. "A truly horrifying feature of this case is that you killed Shafilea in the presence of your other four children."