It is resumed at Reggio Emilia the trial for the femicide of Saman Abbas. During the third hearing before the Court of Assizesthe proceedings for the father Shabbar Abbasheld in Pakistan awaiting extradition, he was officially reunited at the trial for the other four defendants. In fact, the defendants are in competition with each other: the parents, the uncle and two cousins accused of homicide, destruction of corpse and kidnapping of the 18-year-old who died in Novellara on April 30, 2021 after opposing a forced marriage with the cousin.
According to Abbas’ lawyer, Simone Servillo, the father would like to be present. “If he had been, hypothetically, video link set uptoday Shabbar Abbas would be here,” the lawyer said on the sidelines Simone Servillo. “One also has to deal with practical and concrete problems: it happened that the officials asked Shabbar, doing their job perfectly, whether or not he intended to video-connect. Now, at that juncture, Shabbar, not being aware of things, asked for time, whereupon he dissolved his reservation, only that at that point there was no longer the technical possibility of making the video link. But in this there isn’t a defatigatory attempt and also thanks to the Pakistani lawyer (who follows his father in Pakistan, where he is in prison, ed), today I can say that there is Shabbar’s objective and declared will to participate to the trial and finally to tell his truth”. In the last hours a statement from the girl’s father had emerged, who would have denied his consent to participate in today’s hearing, but according to what his lawyer Shabbar Abbas reported in the courtroom, he would have changed his mind. “Today there is a clear will on the part of Shabbar Abbas to be present”, Servillo said again, “so much so that the email sent by the Pakistani colleague clearly states that he is participating and, even, in yesterday’s hearing in Pakistan he gave consent but, unfortunately, as my colleague says, there was no one to represent the Italian authority. This is what the Pakistani colleague writes”.
Meanwhile, this morning, the Marshal of the Carabinieri was heard as a witness Pasqualino Lufranowho reconstructed the story, reporting that he had learned about Saman Abbas for the first time on June 12, 2020, when the father would show up at the barracks to report his disappearance, speaking of his voluntary removal. Saman, then, would later be heard by the carabinieri on June 28, 2020 and, on the basis of what was reconstructed during the testimony, the young woman would not have had, at that time, the consent to use your own mobile phone, because the father did not want to since she had previously had contact with strangers. During the reconstructions, she was also mentioned a written testimony of Saman Abbaswho would talk about abuse in the family from the father.