Muslim man sentenced to life in jail after killing his German-born wife because she was 'too independent'



The scales of justice: A Muslim man has been sentenced to life for killing his 'independent' wife

A Muslim asylum seeker has been sentenced to life in prison after killing his German-born wife because she was 'too independent', a court in Germany heard today.



The 27-year-old Kurdish man, identified only as Onder B, was found guilty today of stabbing his wife in the eyes, beating her with a billiard cue and then running over her in his car.



His mother-in-law had once told him to be 'strict' with her strong-willed daughter, Mujde - who was also Onder's cousin.

On New Year's Eve 2008 he stabbed his 18-year-old wife Mujde 46 times and beat her with a billiard cue.

And because she was 'already so disfigured from the stabbing and beating that she would hate me for the rest of her life,' he got into his car and ran over her body several times.

Bielefeld District Court judge Jutta Albert convicted him on a charge of murder arising from base motives, and one of cruelty, because the defend ant stabbed his wife in both eyeballs while she was still alive.



He stabbed her so hard in the head with a fruit knife that the blade broke off in her skull.

The case has pulled into sharp focus the cultural differences between Western values and the estimated three million Muslim immigrants living and working in Germany.

Bielefeld District Court judge Jutta Albert clashed repeatedly this week with family members of both victim and defendant as details of the horrific case unfolded.

'One more remark from you and you'll be removed!' she told the victim’s mother. 'Do you think you can behave here as if you were in a Turkish bazaar?'

The killer arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker, in 2001. He was 19 and Mujde was 11 at the time.



He married a Turkish woman 10 years his senior, but the couple soon separated.

He returned home to Turkey in 2003, where he performed his mandatory military service, coming back Germany in 2006.



Under a deal between their families a marriage was 'arranged' between him and Mujde, in which he then viewed her, according to prosecutors, 'as his property'.

He returned to Turkey and left her in Germany after marrying in 2007.

The court was told their relationship degenerated into threats and abuse carried out over the Internet with Mujde at one stage reporting him to the police.

The court heard how he was upset 'that she behaved the way she did and didn`t do what he told her'.

'She was too independent and she had to die for it,' said the prosecutor.

He returned to Germany at the end of 2008, killing her on New Year`s Eve because, he claimed, she had turned up the car stereo when he tried to speak to her.

She had also given him an incorrect PIN three times when he tried to check the calls on her mobile phone, and she had refused to answer him when he asked whether she had been unfaithful.



