An Oslo woman who fell in love with her cousin in Pakistan and married him without her parents’ consent testified against them in an Oslo court this week. The woman’s parents and uncle from Fredrikstad are charged with arranging to have her husband (their nephew) murdered, and a murder warrant is also out for his brother (also their nephew).

The complicated and tragic case resulting from a bitter family dispute started this week in the Oslo City Court (Oslo tingrett). Among those indicted are the 67-year-old father and 53-year-old mother of the 25-year-old plaintiff, all living in Oslo, who married her 24-year-old cousin, Tanveer Abbas of Pakistan, without their approval on New Year’s Eve 2011.

She has charged that they paid NOK 470,000 to have Tanveer Abbas murdered along with his father and brother. Abbas’ own oldest brother is charged with all three murders after police found the battered body of Tanveer Abbas tied to a chair in the guesthouse of a lavish home in Gujrat, Pakistan, between Lahore and Islamabad, in May 2013. Abbas’ father and other brother were shot and killed.

The uncle of the plaintiff from Fredrikstad has confessed to being part of planning the murders and admitted being present when the father and brother of the plantiff’s husband were shot. Her parents, described by their widowed daughter as traditional with no education in a patriarchal culture, deny any guilt. The other brother charged in the murders fled, with an international warrant out for his arrest. The Oslo court has set aside eight weeks to hear the case.

newsinenglish.no staff