An attractive 16-year-old Muslim teenager was stabbed to death 23 times by her elder brother "to protect the family's honour" after he tricked her in to meeting him at a McDonald's burger bar car park.

Dark haired Morsal Obeidi was the daughter of an Afghan jet fighter pilot who fled the country after the Taleban came to power.

Together with his wife and five children the father settled in Hamburg, Germany in 1994 where Morsal grew up.

But although she had no problems adjusting to life in a European city her brother Ahmad (24) continually got in to trouble with police.

By the time he had tricked her in to meeting him, Ahmad had 30 convictions for assault and burglary. These also included a conviction for attacking a man with a knife after a drunken night out.

At his trial which started recently in a Hamburg Court Ahmad continually broke down in tears in front of the judge and jury where he is facing murder charges. If convicted he faces a sentence of life imprisonment.

The court was told dark-haired Morsal liked listening to Western music and wearing make up. She also wore mini-skirts and tight jeans and enjoyed going out to discos with pals she met at school.

But instead Ahmad wanted her to wear a veil and go to a mosque for daily prayers.

Although he enjoyed going out drinking with his mates Ahmad did not think it was suitable for his sister to do the same.

The so-called 'honour killing' was allegedly the tragic end to Ahmad's violence against his young and pretty sister.

Public prosecutor Boris Bochnick told the court

that in the months leading up to the murder Ahmad had kicked Moral several times, hit her and also threatened her with a knife.

He said: "The accused told his young sister to come to the parking lot at around 11pm (on May 15 2008), where he asked her if she worked as a prostitute. He thought her reply was 'rubbish' and started to viciously attack her with a knife without warning."

Keep fit-fanatic Ahmad rammed a seven-inch long knife into his sister's body 23 times — in her stomach, backside, arms, legs, heart and lungs. Morsal bled to death at the scene of the crime.

But a friend of her brother's who had brought her to the McDonald's car park witnessed the attack.

The man, named only as Mohammed, spent a short time after the murder wandering through the night before going to a police station, where he was interrogated for six hours.

Finally, racked by guilt, he told detectives it was his pal Ahmad who had killed Morsal. A few hours later armed police stood at the door of Ahmad Obeidi's apartment. He allowed them to take him into custody without any resistence and, the court was told, later confessed to killing his own sister. One police officer said it seemed Ahmad had been waiting for them to turn up and arrest him for murder and confessed to the killing "because she had disconnected herself from the family".

Ahmad was said to be ashamed of his sister for wearing "inappropriate" clothing, although he himself has a history of criminal behaviour.

Judge Wolfgang Backen read out his list of previous crimes: theft, several cases of actual and grievous bodily harm, stabbing a man and drink-driving.

Throughout the hearing Morsel's father Ghulam and her mother Nargis sobbed and cried. At one stage they had to leave the court when they could no longer bear to listen to the evidence and broke down outside crying hysterically.

The court was told Morsal Obeidi tried to lead the kind of life she believed was correct and behave typically like the other teenage girls in her school. She wanted to become integrated in to the society in which she lived.

Although Morsal's brother has pleaded guilty to killing her, his defence is that he did not plan it but that it happened on the spur of the moment and was an "honour" killing. If the jury agrees it could make the difference between a guilty verdict of manslaughter or murder.

Belfast Telegraph