She wanted to lead a self-determined life. But her Afghan family couldn’t put up with it. In July 2021, the two brothers murder their sister because of it. The verdict is now in court.
The Berlin regional court has sentenced two Afghan brothers to life imprisonment for murdering their sister together. The court considered it proven that Yousuf and Mahdi H. murdered their 34-year-old sister in July 2021 and transported the body in a trolley across Germany by train. According to the conviction of the court, they murdered her because the mother of two wanted to lead her life according to her own ideas. That contradicted the moral concepts of the Afghan family. The criminal court followed the request of the public prosecutor’s office with the verdict.
Maryam H. was initially missing in July 2021. But her brothers quickly came under suspicion of having killed her. Video footage from a Berlin train station showed the two men boarding an ICE with a large suitcase. After a few days, the woman’s body was found in Bavaria.
The trial against the two men began in early March 2022. After a long silence, 27-year-old Yousuf H. admitted to killing his sister, but presented it as an accident. He also stated that he had acted without his 23-year-old brother. The defense therefore demanded a maximum five-year prison sentence for Yousuf H. and an acquittal for Mahdi H.
