BERLIN (AP) – German prosecutors said Tuesday they have charged two Afghan brothers with murder over the July killing of their sister, whom they allegedly wanted to punish for her Western way of life.
The men, aged 26 and 22 and identified only as Sayed H. and Seyed H. in line with German privacy rules, are accused of luring their 34-year-old sister to a meeting in Berlin on July 13, then choking and strangling her and cutting her throat.
Prosecutors in the capital charged that they took a taxi to a station later that day with her body in a suitcase, then travelled to Bavaria by train and drove to a site near the elder brother’s home, where they buried her.
The indictment states that the men wanted to punish their sister “for her Western-oriented way of life, which did not correspond to their archaic ideas of honour and morals and their image of women,” prosecutors said in a statement.
In particular, prosecutors added, they weren’t prepared to accept that she had divorced her husband, to whom she was married when she was 16, after violent incidents and had a new relationship.
The two brothers have been in custody since Aug. 3.