In a harrowing revelation, an Italian court has handed a Pakistani couple a life sentence for orchestrating their daughter’s horrific murder, stemming from her defiance of an arranged marriage.

Saman Abbas, merely 18 and residing in Novellara near Bologna, vanished in May 2021, firmly rejecting her family’s coercion into marrying a cousin in Pakistan—an assertion she’d made a year earlier.

The Reggio Emilia tribunal unearthed a chilling plot: the parents masterminded the murder, with an uncle carrying out the act by strangulation. Shockingly, the uncle, confessing through a plea bargain, received a mere 14-year sentence, while two cousins walked free. The nation reels from the impact of this egregious case.

Abbas had sought sanctuary in Nov 2020, reporting her parents to authorities. Yet, in a tragic turn, she visited her family in April 2021, aiming to retrieve her passport and flee with her disapproved boyfriend.

The unsettling disappearance led to a police raid in May, but the perpetrators had already fled to Pakistan. Disturbing surveillance footage depicted five figures leaving with tools, later returning—hours that concealed a horrifying act. A year later, Abbas’s lifeless body was discovered in a desolate farmhouse, her neck broken.

The victim’s brother, a key witness, pointed fingers at their father and implicated the uncle. Shabbar Abbas, the father, was arrested and extradited from Pakistan. Danish Hasnain, the uncle, was apprehended in France, while the cousins were captured in Spain. Notably, the mother, Nazia Shaheen, evades capture, heightening the chilling saga.