Teen describes moment she was choked by father in attempted 'honor killing' after refusing arranged marriage

Daily Mail​

10 hours ago

A teenage girl sobbed as she told a court how she feared for her life as her own father choked her during an alleged 'honor killing'.
Fatima Ali, 18, was giving evidence against her parents Ihsan Ali, 44, and mother Zahraa Subhi Mohsin Ali, 40, at their attempted murder trial on Tuesday.
The couple are accused of trying to strangle their daughter outside Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington, on October 18 last year.
Terrifying footage first published by the Daily Mail before the trial, and shown to the court today, shows Ihsan put her in a chokehold on the ground until her boyfriend Isiah, classmates, and bystanders rescued her.
Fatima, who was just 17 when she was attacked, bravely told the jury of the agonizing moments her consciousness slipped away in her father's grasp.
The petite 5ft 1in girl weighting just 101lbs felt his arms around her throat and 'dirt on my face' from the ground, couldn't breathe, and had pain in her neck.
Prosecutor Heather Stone asked what Fatima was thinking as she struggled to stay alive. 'Heartbroken for what my dad did,' she said.
'Did you have any fear?' Stone asked. 'Yes.' 'Fear of what?'
'Of dying,' Fatima choked out, her voice breaking into a sob.
She was barely able to respond 'no' when asked if she could say anything during the attack.
Fatima was in such a state that Thurston Superior Court Judge Christine Schaller called a recess.
The teenager explained she lost consciousness four times during the attack and only has flashes of memory.
'I could see my hand reaching my neck... because I knew my dad was choking me,' she said of one of them.
'I saw darkness at first. [Then] I saw Isiah and a friend standing above me.'
Ihsan and Zahraa are accused of attempting to carry out a Muslim 'honor killing' on Fatima 'for refusing an arranged marriage with an older man in another county'.
Fatima told police at the time her father threatened her with the barbaric practice multiple times, and was furious she was dating an American boy.
Her parents planned to send her to their home town of Najaf in Iraq on a one-way ticket hours before she sneaked out of the house about 6am with just $100 she took from her mother and a bag of clothes.
Fatima told the court she never told her parents she didn't want to get on the plane because 'no matter what I say it doesn't really change'.
When she got to Timberline, the school counselor helped her find a place at Haven House, a youth crisis center, and gave her a blanket and a laptop to continue her studies.
But the school didn't offer her a ride to the shelter, so when school ended at 2pm she walked to the bus stop with Isiah, who was 16 at the time.
They saw what they thought was Ihsan's pickup truck but hoped it wasn't. He was already at the bus stop when they arrived.
Fatima testified that at first her father didn't appear angry as he asked her to come home with him, but she 'felt the energy and intensity [increase]'.
'[I told him] I didn't wanna go back home,' she said. Did he accept that? 'No.'
'Every time that I backed away, he comes closer.'
Fatima said Isiah was by he side patting her back to comfort her as she argued with her dad in Arabic, but this seemed to make Ihsan angrier.
When the bus finally arrived, Fatima turned to get on it and Ihsan grabbed her hoodie and said 'my daughter' in Arabic, she told the court.
Isiah tried to push Ihsan away, but footage from the bus cameras showed the much larger man punch him in the face and send him flying.
With the teen boy out of the way, he went after his daughter, grabbing her by the throat as she tried to flee.
The girl's boyfriend jumped to his feet and along with two others boys charged at Ihsan and tried to pull him away, knocking both to the ground.
The boys began punching, kicking, and stomping Ihsan as he put his daughter in a chokehold and refused to let go despite the flurry of blows.
Fatima told the court she woke up hearing her mother saying 'my daughter' and felt feels Zahraa holding onto her chest and her neck.
Prosecutors and witnesses alleged Zahraa was trying to finished the honor killing by strangling Fatima after Ihsan was subdued.
Fatima said she initially couldn't get up and eventually when she was pulled away from her mother's grasp and tried to walk away, her legs were weak.
She said her older sister Haneen, 21, who is not charged with a crime, was holding on to her sleeve and she tried to get her to let go.
Eventually Haneen released her and she ran towards the school. Fatima told the court she was trying to get away from mother and sister because 'I was afraid'.
She said she couldn't have gotten away if she was alone, but wasn't asked if that meant she would have died.
Fatima ran into the school office, pursued by her mother. 'I told them he (Ihsan) was trying to kill me,' she said.
Prosecutors did not ask the teenagers about the years of abuse she told police her father subjected her and her siblings, or about Ihsan's alleged threats to kill her.
Judge Schaller ruled prosecutors couldn't bring up the arranged marriage or allow Fatima to talk in detail about a family trip to Iraq when she was 16.
She only told the court 'I felt unsafe' when she was there.
Fatima told police in her interview last year that the trip made her fearful of being sent there to be married off and never allowed to return to the US.
Ihsan's lawyer Erik Kaeding and Zahraa's attorney Tim Leary will continue cross-examining Fatima on Wednesday.
Isiah is also expected to give evidence this week.
Witnesses, including Isiah and Fatima's classmates, gave evidence earlier in the trial about what they saw during the horrifying attack.
John Denicola, a bus driver who stopped to help and whose cameras recorded the melee, told the court how he frantically tried the save the girl.
'Obviously, she was in distress, her eyes were rolling into the back of her head, you could tell she was not able to breathe,' he said.
'The look on [Ihsan's] face and the way he was squeezing, he was choking her.'
Denicola said Ihsan didn't say anything as he choked Fatima, but his eyes were 'wide open' and he 'was focused on his task at hand'.
Josh Wagner, a motorist who stopped his car in the middle of the road and ran to help, described how he freed Fatima from her father's chokehold.
'Her face was changing color as she was being choked... she was gonna lose consciousness if it continued... it was very obvious she was being choked,' he told the court.
Wagner, a 13-year US Army veteran, held Ihsan down until police arrived and handcuffed him.
Both Denicola and Wagner said the dozens of punches and kicks Isiah and his classmates laid into Ihsan were ineffective at getting him to stop choking Fatima.
Wagner's wife Mary Wagner described how Fatima ran in front of her behind the tree pursued by Zahraa and her eldest sister Haneen, 21, then ran towards the school - as shown on the video
Wagner's wife Mary, who watched the attack from her car before crossing the road moments later after Fatima was back on her feet.
'She appeared incredibly confused, she seemed not to know what her surroundings were, she was in kind of a panic,' she said.
'She turned around and looked at me, and her eyes were huge, she had hair in her face, she looked completely disheveled, she looked very confused, absolutely terrified.'
Two of the teens' classmates also testified on Tuesday to seeing Fatima in similar distress as her father choked her.
Both Ihsan and Zahraa are charged with second-degree attempted murder and attempted kidnapping, along with lesser crimes.
They have been behind bars since soon after the attack on bonds of $1 million and $500,000.
The trial is expected to continue for the rest of the month.