A mother has been found guilty of forcing her 20-year-old daughter to marry an older man before he murdered the young woman.
Sakina Muhammad Jan, from Victoria’s north, faced a two-week trial in the County Court after denying she coerced her daughter into marrying the man from Western Australia in 2019.
She was charged with causing a person to enter into a forced marriage.
Prosecutors said Ruqia Haidari told her mother she did not want to marry Mohammad Ali Halimi and accused Jan of handing her daughter over to him in exchange for a $10,000 dowry.
Halimi killed his new wife at their Perth home in January 2020 and is serving a term of life in prison in WA, with a minimum of 19 years.
The young woman was seen to have “lost her value” due to being divorced, when Jan tried to arrange the marriage, prosecutor Darren Renton previously told the jury.
After a matchmaker became involved, a meeting was arranged with Halimi who flew from Perth to Shepparton on June 1, 2019, to meet Haidari for the first time.
Less than two weeks after this meeting, Haidari was married to him in an Islamic ceremony on a temporary basis.
She had told multiple people she did not want to be married to Halimi, including two driving instructors, a teacher, counsellor and police.
When she told her mother she did not want to marry him, Jan said it was not up to her.
“Are you my mother or I’m your mother? I can make decisions for you,” the jury was told Jan said.
Two days later, Haidari’s brother arranged an officiant and she was permanently married to Halimi.
They held an official wedding ceremony in November, and she moved to live with Halimi in Perth later that month.
The jury deliberated for just over a day before returning their guilty verdict to the Melbourne court on Thursday afternoon.
Jurors were not told about Haidari’s murder during the trial, but these details can now be revealed since a verdict has been delivered.
Jan’s bail was extended and she will face a pre-sentence hearing on July 23.
