The Yemeni woman who was killed treacherously in a courtroom
A Yemeni woman went to court to ask for the right to marry the man she had chosen. In the courtroom, in front of the judge, her younger brother killed her. This account, which the author received from lawyers, describes what happened and what is happening in the case now.
About the woman
- She came from the Utmah area.
- She had been married and was divorced. Under Islamic law, this means she had the right to marry by her own decision. Yemeni law, however, does not allow a woman to marry without a guardian.
- She was in her mid-30s.
What happened
When she told her family she wanted to marry a man who had proposed to her, they refused. They beat her and tied her up.
She managed to escape. She spoke to a taxi driver, who took her to a sheikh from Saada. The sheikh went with her straight to the court.
The judge ordered that she stay at the House of Hope, a charity home for people with no home or guardian, until her father came to court to act as her guardian at the engagement. The court helped her bring a case against her father for refusing to let her marry.
The judge summoned the father to court to complete the engagement. The father came but refused outright. The judge then summoned her brother, who was several years younger than her, to act as her guardian at the engagement the next day.
The author asks why the judge insisted that a man of her family arrange the marriage, apparently to meet the legal requirement of a guardian, although she was legally entitled to marry by her own decision. Why did the judge not take on this role himself, when she had come to him for help? And why should a woman's guardianship pass from one man to another, even to a brother 10 years apart from her in age?
The brother came to court carrying a small, sharp blade hidden behind his jambiya, the traditional dagger. Guards usually remove the jambiya's blade, but not the whole belt.
He sat behind his sister. While the judge was busy with the papers in his hands, the brother took the blade in his left hand, lifted his sister's niqab from behind and cut her throat.
To everyone's horror, she stood up, bleeding, and walked to the judge's chair, as if to say: I came to you to save me.
The brother was arrested at once. Later the father came and openly admitted that he had urged his son to kill his sister. The judge sent the father to prison with his son.
What is happening now
According to the account, sheikhs from the father's area have offered two lawyers a large sum of money to invent a case against the woman's morals and spread it, and to claim that the brother was in court by chance and killed her in revenge. The author points out that this story makes no sense: a woman who wanted to marry went to a judge and a court to do it.
This attempt seems to be failing. But now senior, well-known lawyers are trying to have the case judged under a rule that leaves the matter to the victim's next of kin, the "guardian of blood". Here, that is the father, who would naturally forgive his son under Sharia law. The killer could then receive only a few years in prison. According to the account, this is where the case stands in court.
Some lawyers are pressing for a heavier sentence, because of the cruelty of the crime and because it was committed in a courtroom. A court should be the safest place to seek justice. She went there to claim her most basic right: to decide her own future. She did not ask for anything beyond a marriage within the law and Sharia, which should be acceptable in a tribal and religious society and should anger no one.
A call to change the law
The author writes that it is not enough for men and women who believe in the right to life to condemn these crimes. We must press, with all our strength, to change laws that are unjust and inhumane to women, and to men, here and elsewhere. The author calls for civil laws that can be amended and developed, rather than laws shielded from any change by the claim that they are the word of God.
The author notes that this information comes from lawyers they trust very much. There may be more accurate information. Attempts to play down the case, especially to clear the killer, are producing many different versions of events.