https://greekcitytimes.com/2023/11/23/love-jihad-pakistani-life-sentence/
The Joint Jury Court of Athens announced today its decision for the 23-year-old Pakistani, who, in the summer of 2022, had murdered his 17-year-old girlfriend Nicoleta in the Athens neighbourhood of Peristeri because, as he said, she cursed Muhammad, the founder of Islam, during an argument.
With its decision, the court unanimously found the Pakistani defendant guilty of the murder of the young girl and, without recognising any mitigating circumstances, imposed a life sentence on him, Proto Thema reported.
Relatives of the unfortunate girl came close to lynching the perpetrator of the brutal crime, shouting at him.
What the 23-year-old claimed in his testimony
During his testimony in court, the 23-year-old claimed that he had been in a relationship with the girl for 1.5 years and claimed that the reason for their fight was his decision to leave Greece and go to Italy. The girl, as he said, giving his own version of the events, asked him to be baptised a Christian, and during an argument, she cursed Muhammad.
Describing the moments in which he committed the crime, the 23-year-old gave his own version, saying in his testimony: “I went to leave and she started throwing my clothes. I told her to sit on the bed, she started cursing me and cursing Muhammad. I pushed her off the bed and told her to stay there.
“She kept cursing me and Muhammad, and I got angry. I grabbed her by the neck and started telling her, ‘Who is telling you such things all the time? I’m listening to you’. I grabbed her at that time by the head and told her to apologise.
“She grabbed my hand and told me to let her go. I didn’t let her go and kept telling her to apologise. After some seconds, I saw that her eyes were closed. Then I gave her water, gave her air. I was nervous and left the house.”
Judge: Why didn’t you inform Emergency Services to send an ambulance?
Defendant: That was the biggest mistake.
Judge: What did you do next?
Defendant: I took my things and left the house. I went to my brother to get some money and went to Larissa Station to catch the train to Thessaloniki.
Judge: When did you find out that the girl is dead?
Defendant: The next day from the Internet. I called my father and told him that I made a mistake. He asked me what happened and I told him about the girl. He got mad and hung up on me. Then I found a compatriot who worked for immigrants, and I told him I wanted to leave, and he helped me.
The 23-year-old Pakistani then asked for an apology from the family of the murdered girl. “I wanted to apologise to you and my friend’s family. I know an apology can’t do anything, but that’s all I can do,” he said.
“Lifers should be lifers.”
At the start of the hearing and later, there was tension with the victim’s father breaking out shouting at the accused: “Don’t look at me at all, rot in prison”.
Police removed him from the courtroom to calm him down, where the distraught father was heard saying: “To lose my daughter in a car accident, I understand that, but to lose her in this way to have her strangled?”
In fact, he himself, in his testimony in court, had mentioned earlier that he had objections to his daughter’s relationship with the 23-year-old, about whom he said, among other things: “She wanted to, and she did it. I want him to have no fate in the sun, never to see the sun. The lifetime sentence should be a lifetime.”
In her own testimony, the sister of the unfortunate Nicoleta said: “I think he did it out of jealousy because that day, two friends had come to the house, and he did not want these friends there. I immediately understood that he had committed the crime because inside the house were not his things. A week before, my mother had spoken to my sister and [my sister] told her, ‘Mum, wait a week, and I will separate from him.'”
It is recalled that the 17-year-old girl was found dead inside her home with signs of strangulation. The authorities suspected the now 23-year-old Pakistani immediately, but he had disappeared. When he was arrested, he confessed to the girl’s murder, claiming that he killed because the victim had cursed Muhammad during an argument.
It is recalled that the father said in August 2022 that he not only disapproved of the relationship, but of any type of relationship with “these people”.
“Finally, here it is, what happened. She thought that her relationship will be very good and here is the result,” he said.
The autopsy results found that the Pakistani allegedly used his hands to suffocate his 17-year-old girlfriend.
With his left hand, he allegedly pressed her nose and head, and left marks, bruises and small abrasions on her face. With his right hand he closed her mouth, probably using some small cloth.
According to a report by the Free Press, police detected dozens of threatening messages on Nicoleta’s mobile phone from the Pakistani man.
Nicoletta was raped at the age of 11
The 17-year-old’s father told ANT1 last year: “I sit and look at pictures and I keep crying. A month ago we were having a good time, I had her in my arms. My child can’t be brought back by anyone.”
He then revealed that the 17-year-old and his older son, when they were 11 and 8 years old respectively, in Makrohori where they grew up, were victims of systematic sexual abuse by three men, an 82-year-old now deceased paedophile and two Albanians, one who was dating Nicoletta’s mother.
The two Albanians were sentenced to many years in prison, but one remains a fugitive, believed to be in Germany.
