An 18-year-old Pakistani girl who has been missing from a town near Reggio Emilia since the end of April after refusing an arranged marriage in Pakistan was strangled by her uncle, who confessed to her younger brother, a preliminary investigations judge (GIP) said Monday.
The GIP adjudged as "credible" the brother's testimony that the uncle, Hasnain Danish, confessed the murder to him but refused to say where her body was, judicial sources said.
Saman's father wept over her alleged murder, the boy added.
Saman had a violent argument with her family the night before she disappeared, according to an arrest warrant for the five suspect relatives published Monday.
Saman Abbas allegedly shouted "give me my documents".
Her father reportedly asked her "do you want to marry someone else" to which she replied "no, I want to go away".
Prosecutors said Monday that the five suspects were under investigation for premeditated murder and that Saman was not in Belgium as her father had said.
A young member of the family reportedly told police "I think he (the uncle) strangled her, also because when he came home he didn't have anything in his hands".
Saman's uncle referred to a "job well done" to a friend in an Internet chat room, Italian police said at the weekend, saying he was probably referring to her murder and the disposal of her body.
Danish Hasnain, 33, reportedly wrote "we did the job well", according to the Gazzetta di Reggio Emilia newspaper.
Abbas also reportedly overheard her family saying that murder was "the only solution" for women who did not obey the Pakistani Muslim way of life, and she suspected "they are talking about me", the paper said.
Abbas told her boyfriend about this family conversation, police said.
Saman's parents, her uncle Danish and two cousins have been placed under investigation for homicide and disposing of a body.
They are all on the run except for a cousin, Ikram Ijaz, arrested last week in the French city of Nimes.
The parents flew to Pakistan at the beginning of May, and the uncle and the other cousin are believed to be somewhere in Europe.
The Union of Italy's Islamic Communities (UCOII) on Wednesday issued a fatwah (ban) on arranged marriages after Saman's case.
UCOII issued the ban, along with one on infibulation, together with the Islamic Association of Imams and Religious Guides. The fatwah is against "conduct that cannot find any religious justification and are therefore absolutely to be condemned, and still more to be prevented".
UCOII said the case of Saman Abbas "has shocked and concerned us from the start".
Abbas went missing from her home in Novellara at the end of April.
Police said they had CCTV footage of three people carrying two spades, a bucket with a blue bag, a crowbar and another tool heading for the fields behind the Abbas family house.
The suspected body-disposal party left the house at 19:15 on April 29 and came back at 21:50 on the same evening.
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