In the spring of 2021 a young Pakistani woman named Saman Abbas disappeared in Italy, and was believed to have been “honor-killed” by her parents and male relatives. Much later her body was found.

Saman’s father and mother absconded to Pakistan, but over the course of the last two years her uncle and two cousins have been arrested in various European countries. Now they have gone on trial, and her parents are being tried in absentia. The two cousins and the uncle are present in person.

Investigators had concluded that Saman’s uncle Danish was the one who actually killed her, but in his testimony in court, Danish denies committing the act, and places the blame elsewhere: on Saman’s mother.

Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Il Giornale:

“It’s our culture”— That is how the uncle recounts the murder of Saman

The uncle of Saman Abbas talked a lot, providing his own version of the murder and the concealment of the body: For him, it was the mother who killed his niece.

by Angela Leucci
February 23, 2023

By whose hand was Saman Abbas killed? The investigators have always focused attention on the uncle, Danish Hasnain, but now the man is talking and gives a version that he will probably have to repeat and integrate into the trial.

“Who saw it?” [program] has broadcast some images transmitted by Tgr [news] in Emilia Romagna, parts of videos gathered during the investigation by the prison police. In these clips, Danish tells a version different from that reconstructed by the investigators.

In fact, Danish says that he was called by the parents, who directed him to the fifth greenhouse, where he reportedly found Saman already dead. It was the night between April 30 and May 1, 2021, at the farm where the Abbas family worked in Novellara.

Danish’s story

“When I took her, Saman didn’t weigh much, 60 kilos,” Danish explained, losing himself in various narratives. He says that he and Saman used to play on a large scale used to weigh food. He says he was in a lot of disagreement with his brother, Shabbar Abbas, and that he did a lot for the nephews. “When I got my pay, I put a little in an envelope for Saman and her brother. After I bought cigarettes, Abbas took all the money,” he adds. And he explains that Shabbar was behind in his gas and light bills, so much that Danish reportedly asked his employer for loans and advances on his pay in order to be able to pay for the bills. “I did it for the children, not for Abbas,” Danish noted, inviting the investigators to ask the employer for confirmation.

Then Danish tells who reportedly killed Saman. “I took Saman,” he continues, “I picked her up, came here (indicating the fourth greenhouse, editor). Then I remember that two or three minutes later, she was here with her head on the ground. Ikram and Noumanoulaq told me, “Don’t worry. Nazia killed her, not Abbas. In our culture, the police cannot take a woman, for us, that is shameful”. Nazia is Nazia Shaheen, Saman’s mother.

Danish also claims he felt sick during the concealment of the body and that he never took the shovel. He will probably have to respond to the court in relation to the video surveillance film in which he along with the two cousins is captured as they walked off with tools toward the greenhouses the day before the disappearance of his niece.

What the attorney says

The lawyer for Danish, Liborio Cataliotti explained to “Who saw it?” that Danish had decided to talk only after the arrest of Shabbar out of fear, so much that he also asked for the transfer of his partner to Italy. “As defense counsel, I do not subscribe a priori to his version,” the attorney comments. “The choice made in a trial is to use all the instruments, as well as and above all, those that offer the technology, in order to verify.”

Cataliotti dismisses the video of the day before the disappearance as “media-induced suggestions,” recalling how Danish had enabled the discovery of the body and pledging that Danish will very probably make spontaneous statements in the trial.

Saman’s brother’s version

The investigators, however, have relied on the testimony of Saman’s brother, who claimed that the material perpetrator of the crime was Danish. Naturally, these initial statements will also have to be evaluated. From the Carabinieri reports, it also appears that Saman’s brother never missed an opportunity to show his co-nationals the videos that the 18-year-old posted on her social media with her boyfriend, Saqib Ayub.

For the moment, there are 5 charged: The father Shabbar, the mother Nazia, the uncle Danish, and the cousins Ikram Ijaz and Noumanoulaq Noumanoulaq. Shabbar is in custody in Pakistan, and there is no news as to a possible extradition, while Nazia is a fugitive. They are accused of kidnapping, premeditated murder, and concealment of a body. The hypothesis of the investigators is that the relatives killed Saman because the young girl was opposed to a forced marriage with an older cousin.

Previous posts about the honor killing of Saman Abbas: