Heroic verdict for honourless crime

Twelve good and true Canadians — seven women, and five men — held the moral fabric of this country in their hands, and decided there was no blanket of “honour” in the Shafia murder case.

They are heroes.

They stood for us all, and delivered the only verdict that would establish Canada’s firm resolve that we are not a country that will tolerate the cold-blooded and twisted customs of foreign lands.

So it will be life imprisonment for Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and their son, Hamed, all convicted of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of their family members.

The Shafia’s three teenaged daughters, and Shafia’s first wife through polygamy, were found drowned in their car in the Rideau Canal at Kingston Mills, Ont., in June 2009.

The case rightfully outraged Canadians who saw the vileness within, and their rage was rewarded with the Shafia family destined to live out their ugly lives in prison, most likely in protective custody.

The code of the prison has tougher penalties.

The Commons returns this week, and a urgent cabinet meeting must be called by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to deal with what has become an epidemic in this country.

The Shafia case, despite its high profile, was approximately the 14th murder case in recent years where so-called “family honour” was the toxin behind the murder of innocents.

While first-degree murder convictions deal out the harshest penalty Canada has to offer, the Harper government might consider adding a dangerous offender designation to “honour killing” convictions — just to ensure they never draw a breath of air outside a prison.

It should also do something about the red flags that went ignored, by the police and by social service agencies, when the Shafia children tried to seek safety and refuge.

Canada must protect such children, young people who come to our shores and want to be part of this country — not the country that they fled, and the brutal customs back home.

Canada should mean belonging, and assimilating.

As Justice Robert Maranger put it, “It’s difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honourless crime.”

He is not wrong, and neither was the jury.

It sent a powerful message.

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/29/heroic-verdict-for-honourless-crime

A Shi-ite man and his Shi-ite wife killed a Muslim woman.