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issued(Jarvis 2000: 17).Note thatJarvis's work preceded the credibilityprovisionsinthe 2004Act,whichwere discussedearlier.

22 '[J]udging demeanour acrossculturaldividesis fraughtwith danger' ('B' [DRG]).23 My discussionhere focuseson judges because they make the crucialrulingson credi-

bility.However,Ramji-Nogaleset al. foundlargedisparitiesin decisionmakingamongDepartment of Homeland Securityofficials(equivalentto UKBA's case-owners)too;many officersare 'outliers' whose grant rates differby 50 per cent or more from thenorm in their own regionaloffice,and who therefore 'appear to have grant rates thatreflectpersonaloutlooksrather than an officeconsensus'(2007~08:372).

24 Imagine, for example, an Iranian whose story is whollydisbelieved,but whose drug-related convictionoverseasis deemedlikelyto bring him to the adverseattention of theauthoritiesif returned.

Chapter 6

Honour killing? Or just plainhomicide?

Roger Bollard

In all known human societies, the deliberate killing of another human being isinvariably viewed as an exceedingly serious offence. However, there are circum-stances in which acts of homicide are regarded as legitimate, for example warfareand execution by properly constituted authorities of those found guilty of a criminaloffence. However, a failure to negotiate an equitable settlement as between con-tending parties may lead to further homicidal retribution - or in other words tofeud. Reactions to any given incident of homicide almost always vary dependingon the precise context in which the incident takes place: hence, in virtually allcontemporary jurisdictions a clear distinction is made between incidents of pre-meditated first degree murder, on the one hand, and a less serious offence ofmanslaughter on the other, applied in circumstances where the perpetrator actednegligendy, accidentally, in self-defence, or as a result of provocation or becauseof an altered balance of mind at the time of the incident. It follows that whilstthose convicted of murder attract the most serious punishment available - ifnot the death sentence, then something akin to life imprisonment - those foundguilty of manslaughter invariably receive much shorter sentences. Wherever thisdistinction is in place it follows that the finders of fact in homicide trials (mostusually a jury) are confronted with two complementary tasks when they retire toconsider their verdict: first, to establish whether the person or persons in the dockwere indeed the perpetrators, as the prosecution alleges; and, secondly, if a plea ofguilty to manslaughter has been entered, to establish the precise character of theperpetrator's motivation when the incident took place, in the light of the evidencewhich they have heard during the course of the trial.

The provision of expert evidence in contexts ofethno-religious plurality

My own experience of being called to give expert evidence in the course ofproceedings in which litigants of South Asian descent had become involved, andin which the impact of their distinctive cultural practices was potentially at stake.This not only broke new ground in legal terms, but also of anthropologicalpractice in the UK; a result I had to find my own way around hitherto uncharted

124 Conflicts

arena (Ballard 20Q6b, 2007a, 2007b). However, as I did so, it soon becameapparent that some of the most significant, the most challenging and certainly themost illuminating cases in which I was called to give evidence were those whichgave rise to charges of homicide.

There were two reasons why this was so. In the first place there are few crimesin which motive is of such critical importance than in this context, given that it isthe motive which differentiates first-degree murder from manslaughter. Hence, ifthe jury is to conduct its fact-finding role on an insightful basis, it must carefullyseek to contextualise exactly what went on in the run-up to the incident inquestion. Secondly, the jury's capacity to fulfil this role on an equitable basis isrendered all the more challenging if and when popular opinion is far from neutralwith respect to religious, cultural and familial practices of the community fromwhich the defendant is drawn. From this perspective members of Britain's newminorities, and most especially South Asian Muslims, currently find themselves ina position of acute vulnerability. In the aftermath of the Rushdie Affair, 9/11,rows over Hijabs and so forth, sensationalist reporting in the press has popularisedthe view that because members of this section of the population remain heavilycommitted to the notions of honour and patriarchy. As a result they are held todisplay an alarmingly propensity to engage in 'honour killings', in which wivesand daughters are brutally murdered by their husbands or fathers, simply becausethey have had the temerity to challenge patriarchal authority (Idriss and Abbas2010, Welchman and Hossain 2005).

These developments have attracted the attention of politically driven law-makers. In the face of ever more loudly articulated arguments - no less from thefeminist left than the nationalist right - that the consequences of unchallenged andunchallengeable patriarchy exemplifies just why it is that such harmful traditionalpractices should most definitely not be granted any kind of institutionalised recog-nition. Issues of kinship and marriage, and most especially the phenomenon of'honour killing', has consequently emerged as the cutting edge of the current argu-ments about the need to regulate - and ultimately to criminalise - the most egre-gious dimensions of ethnic alterity (Korteweg and Yurdakul 2010). In parallel todevelopments in many other European jurisdictions, the UK has recently addedan additional dimension to laws dealing with offences that are further aggravatedby the presence of honour-related violence. Defendants found guilty of being somotivated can expect to receive an exemplary punishment.

But just how can honour-related crimes be distinguished from others? In casesof homicide the basic fact that someone has been unlawfully killed is identical. Ifthe incident takes place in a familial or domestic context, it invariably follows thatthe perpetrator(s) and the victim were intimately involved with one another priorto the event. However, what distinguishes an incident of honour-related violencefrom one which is not is neither the mode of killing nor the personal and familialcontext in which the assault took place. Rather it is the perpetrator's motivationsand state of mind at the moment the incident occurred. Hence, in the course ofdetermining whether or not an 'honour killing' took place, the court, and the jury

Honour killingl Or just plain homicidel 125

need to apply the same litmus test as in the case of differentiating manslaughterfrom murder. But whilst a finding that the defendant was provoked, and/or wasaffected by 'an alteration of mind', points in the direction of the lesser offence ofmanslaughter rather than murder, a finding that the violence was motivated byconsiderations of honour - as currently understood - serves to point in preciselythe opposite direction.

What is honour killing?

Honour killing is by definition a cultural crime, in the sense that it can only becommitted by a person for whom issues of personal and familial honour are ofpressing concern. Such a phenomenon became obsolete in north western Europea long time ago, and hence the only circumstances where a suspicion that anhonour-related crime is likely to arise are within the context of a community inwhich such ideas still prevail, for example amongst South Asian, Middle Easternand North African - and more often than not of Muslim - extraction. However,just when should cases of homicide that occurred in such contexts be classed as'honour killings'?

A spectrum of possibilities is available. One of the most commonly deployedoptions is one positing an inescapable link between honour and patriarchy wherewomen are invariably the victims of honour killing. A classic - and much cited -articulation of this position was produced some years ago by Human RightsWatch:

Honor crimes are acts of violence, usually murder, committed by male familymembers against female family members, who are held to have brought dis-honour upon the family. A woman can be targeted by (individuals within) herfamily for a variety of reasons, including: refusing to enter into an arrangedmarriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce - even froman abusive husband - or (allegedly) committing adultery. The mere percep-tion that a woman has behaved in a way that 'dishonours' her family is suffi-cient to trigger an attack on her life.

(Human Rights Watch 2001)

This definition stands in sharp distinction to the observations of anthropologistswho have first-hand observations of these processes in migrants' countries oforigin. For example, on the basis of fieldwork amongst the Pathans of Pakistan'sNorth West Frontier Province - often identified as being amongst the globe'sstrictest practitioners of gender segregation - Barth identifies understandings ofhonour itself, as well as those who lose their lives in honour-related feuds, as anoverwhelmingly male phenomenon:

Pathans greatly admire a man who possesses a reputation for willingness todefend his honour and interests, for violence and impetuousness, for bravery

126 Conflicts

and valour ... Thus feuds in defence of honour become demonstrations of therelative abilities and powers of opponents; he who wins in such feuds anddefends his honour thereby demonstrates his capacity as a powerful chief andcompetent leader, little wonder that people admire him and that followersflock to his men's house; his reputation serves as protection to his followers aswell as to himself. Little wonder, also, that leaders are driven to adopt thispattern in their relations with their rivals.

(Barth 1959: 85)

Gender is also an issue in such contexts. Women have an obligation to protecttheir own modesty, whilst male honour is critically dependent on their capacity toprotect and defend the modesty of the women for whom they are responsible.It follows that the most effective means of humiliating a rival is by interferingwith the modesty of his wife, sisters and daughters. However, when such actionsgenerate a pattern of tit-for-tat rivalry, as is regularly the case, it is males on theopposing side, rather than their womenfolk, who are most likely to be the ultimatetargets, since this is held to restore the honour of those who would otherwise havebeen reduced to a condition of humiliation.

But on the other side of the spectrum lies the belief that there is nothing hon-ourable about killings, such that they should simply be regarded a particularlyobnoxious form of murder. As Lord Justice Wall recently put it:

The notion of honour killing is an affront to English law. They are simply actsof sordid criminal behaviour and have nothing to do with any concept ofhonour known to English law. Arson, domestic violence and potential revengelikely to result in abduction or death are criminal acts, which will be treatedas such.

(AM and Local Authority v The Children's Guardian B-M (Children))

Whilst the judge's remarks were widely cited in the press, not least because theygave further traction to the popular slogan 'there is no honour in honour killing',it is noteworthy that he did not dismiss the concept of honour per se. Instead,he condemns a particular notion of honour that gives rise to 'acts of sordid crimi-nal behaviour, which have nothing to do with any concept of honour knownto English law'. Closely examined, the sub-text of this formulation is clear.Behaviour arising in response to English notions of honour is respectable andlegitimate in the eyes of English law; but in no way does that apply to behaviourarising in response to South Asian notions of honour (U. izzat). Hence, 'honour-related' violence is quite specifically a cultural crime. It is one that can only becommitted by members of a community whose notions of honour and its conse-quences differ substantially from contemporary English understandings of thatsame notion.

It follows that whether they are explicitly aware of it or not, when detectives,prosecutors, defence lawyers, judges, juries and journalists find themselves dealing

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 127

with incidents of homicide within South Asian families, they invariably find them-selves navigating through exceptionally tricky waters. How well do they cope?

Empirical observation of South Asian homicidetrials in the UK

My own awareness of the issues in this field arises as a result of being called to giveexpert evidence in over 30 homicide trials in which the defendants were of SouthAsian descent. In such circumstances my formal role is to assist the court, andmore specificallythe finders of fact (in this case the jury), by presenting my expertopinions about those aspects of the evidence which would otherwise be beyondthe understanding of an 'average person'. But although the expert's duty is quiteexplicitly to the court, in the adversarial context experts are invariably instructedby one or the other of the contending parties. In homicide cases my instructionshave overwhelmingly come from the defence, and only occasionally from theprosecution. However, the contents of my instructions are invariably imprecise,and often virtually unanswerable from an anthropological perspective. Hence, forexample, I am frequently asked to comment on 'the cultural background' of thelitigants, and to provide answers to some more specific questions which counselhave carefully framed with their own strategic objectives in mind. As a result Iroutinely look way beyond my instructions as I work my way through the docu-ments with which I have been provided. During the course of the investigation,I rarely interview the defendant him or herself, who is normally in custody. In ahomicide case, the documents invariably include witness statements taken from allthose remotely involved with the perpetrator and the victim, which are invariablyimmensely illuminating in ethnographic terms, since they serve to highlight thevaried experiences and perspectives of everyone concerned. My task is to begin tountangle what went wrong and, above all, why.

My reports regularly begin with an exploration of the internal dynamics of theextended family within which the incident in question took place, including theconstruction of a detailed genealogy setting out exactly how everyone is related toeveryone else. After contextualising everything, I move on to consider the dynam-ics of the relationship between the perpetrator (and sometimes the alleged perpe-trator) and the victim, the context within which the act of homicide occurred andthe extent to which all these factors might have influenced the perpetrator'smotives. However, in doing so, great care must be taken to avoid trespassing onthe jury's role as finders of fact, since expert reports can be declared inadmissibleby the judge if he concludes that the expert has crossed this limit.

As I soon discovered, there are also yet more hurdles that one's report has tosurmount. Although I prepare my reports to assist the randomly selected jury togain a more accurate appreciation of matters likely to be beyond their collectiveknowledge, the jury never sees my report, since it is expected to rely only onthe verbal testimony that its members have heard in the course of the trial. Inthese circumstances there are only two ways by which the jury is allowed to gain

128 Conflicts

access to the arguments and conclusions I have developed. Either it is when I amasked specific questions during the course of examination and cross-examinationin the witness box - which is rare - or when portions of my report which havebeen 'agreed' with counsel for the other side, are read out loud. Both options offera poor mode of communication with the audience, especially if one is trying toadvance complex arguments in a nuanced fashion.

However, this is by no means the only way in which expert evidence can have animpact on the conduct of the trial. In the first place, counsel may choose to utilise thearguments presented in my report when devising questions for those appearing inthe witness box, and in the process of preparing their closing speeches. Furthermore,counsel mayor may not disclose the report to other parties to the proceedings, andhence to the judge, if and when they find it strategically advantageous to do so.Hence, the only circumstances where finder of fact has direct access to the argu-ments and analyses set out in my report is when that role is fulfilled by the judgehimself This routinely occurs in civil proceedings, but never in homicide trials.

From my point of view as an expert, the difference is enormous. Civil proceed-ings open the way for direct communication between myself and my audience,with the result that judges frequently ask me supplementary questions once coun-sel have finished their examination of my evidence. In criminal trials the jurycannot do so, whilst the judge's capacity to intervene is sharply constrained as aresult of his role as a referee; and since counsel operates on a tactical basis through-out the proceedings, they effectively become mouthpieces for the expert(s) whomthey have chosen. The tactical priorities of counsel strictly limit one's capacity ofalerting the court to the unfamiliar conceptual perspectives in terms of which wit-nesses are operating. So, if counsel is unimpressed and/or unconvinced by thearguments I have advanced in my report, and/or if counsel is uncertain about hisor her capacity to persuade the jury (and the judge) of the validity of my anthro-pologically grounded perspective. It follows that if and when at I find myself inthe witness box, counsel can readily examine me in such a way that I find myselfprecluded from addressing issues which I consider to be matters of pressingconcern. In these circumstances one begins to feel that one's role has been reducedto that of a ventriloquist's dummy.

When dispute resolution fails to supply a remedyThe case studies I have set out below' serve to illustrate some of the complexdynamics of the South Asian familial circumstances in which incidents of homi-cide can take place. None of the cases summarised here should be regarded as'typical'.

Noses out of joint: a tale of two BiraderisThis case was exceptional in that I was instructed by the police, who only had cir-cumstantial evidence suggesting that those responsible for killing a young Pakistani

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 129

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130 Conflicts

male whose battered body was retrieved one morning from a supermarketcar park, were close relatives of a young Pakistani woman whom he had recentlymarried in Gretna Green. However, no firmly substantiated evidence with respectto the suspects' motivation was found.

I agreed to prepare a report, whereupon I was provided with copies of all thewitness evidence that the police had managed to gather in the course of theirinvestigation. As is my routine practice, I prepared a genealogy showing the pat-terns of kinship relations within and between the extended families to which allthose associated with the incident belonged.

Both biraderis (descent groups) turned out to originate from the Azad Kashmirregion of Pakistan, j who were now living in the UK in the same neighbourhoodin a town about 20 miles distant from the city where Zafar Iqbal (the deceased)and his partner Rizwana had relocated after their runaway marriage. There wereno prior linksof kinship or marriage between the two biraderis before settling in theUK. As such, each biraderi formed a self-contained arena of social interaction,which was reinforced by cousin marriage - a routine form of social organisationin this context. It is also worth noting that cousin marriage has gained furtherstrategic importance as a result of the UK's restrictive immigration laws: the onlyway in which some Pakistani nationals could legitimately gain access to Britainwas (and is)by marriage to a UK citizen.

Zafar Iqbal had recently arrived in the UK as a result of an arranged marriagewith Kulsoom, his father's brother's granddaughter. However, the couple did notget on well together because Kulsoom turned out to have a boyfriend (also ofKashmiri descent) of her own, and soon Zafar also established an equally surrepti-tious relationship with another Kashmiri girl in the neighbourhood. This wasRizwana, who was shortly to marry the son of her father's sister-in-law, Nasreen,both of whom were living in Pakistan. It followed that as these young people hadbegun to set their own agendas in the selection of marital partners, they had alsobegun seriously to interfere with the long-term strategic initiatives which theirparents were pursuing within their respective biraderis.

Nasreen, who turned out to be the power behind the throne in this biraderi,somehow got wind of the fact that her youngest son's bride-to-be Rizwanawas having an affair with Zafar. As a result she demanded that Arif, Rizwana'sfather (who was also her brother-in-law) should take steps to bring their relation-ship to an end. Arif promptly grounded his eldest daughter, although Zafarand Rizwana remained in contact with one another via their mobiles. As soonas an opportunity arose, Rizwana ran away with Zafar to Gretna Green to getmarried.

However, prior to their elopement, tensions had begun to rise between the twobiraderis, most especially between their female members. Given that her youngestson Tahir's future was at stake ifRizwana failed to fulfilher father's promise thatshe would in due course marry Tahir, Nasreen went to visit Zafar's eldest sisterParveen Akhtar, who lived nearby, to demand that she also take active steps to

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 131

ensure that Zafar went back to his wife and stopped leading Rizwana astray. Shehad little Success.After Rizwana absconded, a serious row ensued between thetwo women, into which other women from the biraderi were rapidly drawn.Angered by Nasreen's suggestions that everything was Zafar's fault, Parveencountered by arguing that the fault lay on the other side, that Rizwana had notbeen brought up properly, and in consequence was acting like a slut. A feud wasdeveloping between the two biraderis, and as this occurred dhane (taunts) began tofly in all directions.

Aware of these developments, Zafar and Rizwana decided that it would bemost inadvisable to return to their home town. Therefore, they rented a flat in theneighbouring city. Some weeks later Zafar received a call on his mobile late atnight, whereupon he told Rizwana (who had by then retired to bed) that he wasgoing out to meet some friends. The followingmorning Zafar's corpse was discov-ered in a nearby supermarket car park. He had died of multiple stab wounds.However, examination of the body revealed no forensic evidence on the basis ofwhich positive identification of his assailants might be made.

Nevertheless, the police had their suspicions and in due Course Iqbal, TariqandJehangir, Rizwana's familymembers, were arrested and charged with murder.All three exercised their right to remain silent and the only evidence on which thepolice could rely to link the three defendants to Zafar's murder was a report bythe mobile phone company, whose records showed that the phones registered intheir names were present in the city where Rizwana and Zafar had taken refugeon the appropriate date. Having been instructed to prepare a report by the detec-tive sergeant in charge of the investigation (who, uniquely in my experience todate, was himself of Pakistani descent), my examination of the evidence illuminat-ing the dynamics of interpersonal relationships amongst those involved led me toconclude that Rizwana's elopement with Zafar had precipitated a bitter clashbetween their respective biraderis, and that in my opinion it was consequentlyentirely plausible to suggest that in the light ofZafar's 'abduction' ofRizwana andthe abuse that Nasreen had let loose on Zafar's kinsfolkwhen they sought to settlethe matter amicably, members of the Arif biraderi had taken the view that the onlyway in which they could restore the damage to their izzat was to dispatch thedefendants to eliminate him.

When the case came to trial (by which time the defendants had seen myreport) all three entered pleas of guilty. Since my report had been acceptedon all sides I was not called to give evidence in person. However, I subsequentlylearned that whilst counsel for the prosecution relied on its contents in out-lining the foundations of his case to the judge, those acting for the defendantsalso used it as a basis for articulating pleas of mitigation. In due course allthree defendants were found guilty of murder, and received sentences of lifeimprisonment.

In my view this case was a classicexample of revenge, precipitated by an effortto teach Zafar and his biraderi a fatal lesson.

132 Conflicts

A cuckold unable to contain himself in the face of hiswife's taunts

In this case where a Sikh husband stabbed his estranged wife to death, I wasinstructed b~ the defence rather than the prosecution. The defendant did not d~nythat he was responsible for killing his wife; however, he entered a plea of not guiltyof murder but guilty of manslaughter. I consequently had the added advantage ofbeing able to consider the contents of his proof of evidence, as well as numerouswitness statements taken by the police. . .

According to his account, Harpal Singh had just completed an e~gmeer~ngcourse from Phagwara Polytechnic, a prestigious institution in the Punjab (IndIa!,and had obtained a much-prized post in the PUb.licWork~ Departm~)nt whe~ ~ISparents received an offer of marriage from a family based m the UK. - The glrll~question, Balbir Kaur, belonged to a respectable Sikh fa~ily and Harpal and hISfamily jumped at the opportunity, which would allow him to move. to t?e U~.This relocation turned out to be disappointing for him because, despite his quali-fications, he was only able to obtain employment as a semi-skilled labourer.However, he worked long hours of overtime to raise his family and soon becamean active and respected member of the local Sikh temple.

His wife Balbir also worked to support the family. However, she becameromantically involved with a eo-worker at the Post Office, Razak, who ~as a mar-ried Muslim. The couple engaged in extra-marital sex at her house wh~st Harpalwas at work and the children were at school. Although Harpal remamed blmdto all this, the children soon became aware of their mother's affair. Harpal onlydiscovered about his wife's affair when he chanced to overhear a telephone c~n-versation between his wife and her lover. A huge row ensued, as a result of whichBalbir walked out to live with her Muslim lover.

Harpal felt that his honour had been completely ruined and fell i~to a severedepression. He refused to go out, even (and in some sens~s especially) to thetemple. The children grew increasingly concerned ab?ut theI~pare.nts who we.refar from happy. So, they managed to engineer a family meetmg with the familyelders in which Balbir and Harpal agreed to make up. It was also agreed thatBalbir had been led astray by Razak, her lover, because of an amulet that he hadgiven her. The couple had to make a pilgrimage to a series of shrines in the Punjabto overcome the remaining influence of the amulet."

After the pilgrimage, Harpal and Balbir were ready to start afresh, but soonafter, when Harpal suggested to Balbir that intimacy between ~hemshould res~me(as they had been sleeping in different rooms), she pus~ed hIm ~way: A rapidlyescalating argument broke out during the course of which Balbir artIcu~ated anextremely insulting stream of dhane (taunts) mocking Harpal's manhood, hISsex~alcapacity and hence his izzat. Harpallost c?ntrol ~f hi~ senses and grabbed a knifewith which he stabbed Balbir, and then tned to kill himself as well.

The jury found Harpal guilty of manslaughter, largely on the basis of e.videncefrom a psychiatrist who expressed the opinion that he was mentally disturbed

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 133

when the incident took place. As far as I am aware counsel for the defence madelittle if any use of my arcane 'cultural' analysis.

A frustrated husband loses his cool

Sufia Ali was born in Britain to parents of Sylheti origin. She left school at l6 andfound employment in a local school as a classroom assistant. Shortly afterwardswhen her sick mother passed away, her father decided to return to Bangladesh toacquire a new wife to help him bring up his large family. Also, since his daughterhad reached a marriageable age, he wanted to find a husband for her as well.Sufia was not in a position to object.

As her father was well aware, his daughter would be regarded as a real catch inthe Sylheti marriage market, as her spouse would be able to gain entry into theUK. Sufia's father's criterion for her spouse was largely financial as his demandsincluded the signing over half of the groom's family land in 'dowry'. Mudassirnot only matched this criterion but he was also an attractive catch in many otherways. Having gained an MA from Dhaka University, he had found a job in theCivil Service, where he had excellent prospects of advancement. However, likethe vast majority of young men in Bangladesh, he saw this match as a chance toimprove his long-term prospects further. Although he was delighted at the pros-pect of going to the UK, he was also well aware of the financial transaction thathad underpinned his marriage and the consequent family expectations.

The couple were quickly married, but before the marriage could be consum-mated, Sufia and her father flew back to England, whilst Mudassir applied for anentry certificate. His application was approved almost two years later and whenhe finally arrived in the UK his wife gave him the cold shoulder and refused toshare a bed with him. He then discovered that his wife was not a teacher but onlyan unqualified classroom assistant with no intellectual interests whatsoever andalso that she was rumoured to have had several boyfriends prior to his arrival inthe UK. However, because of his family's investment in his rishta, he could notcomplain or protest. He had no alternative but to make the most of it. Initially, hetook a job as a waiter in a Bengali-owned 'Indian' restaurant, which was in prin-ciple beneath him, but he soon began to move up the ladder. He was recruited toa higher paying job with much better prospects in a substantial Bengali foodwholesale business. However, Sufia was unimpressed by her husband's sophisti-cated airs and graces. Instead, she took every opportunity to abuse and humiliatehim, in an effort to pressurise him to abandon the marriage.

One day the couple were preparing a meal: Mudassir was frying the onionsand garlic, whilst Sufia was cutting up a chicken. When he let the onions burn,Sufia let loose a stream of humiliating abuse at her husband. Mudassir could con-tain himself no longer. He grabbed the knife with which Sufia was cutting up thechicken and began to stab her with it, causing injuries that proved to be fatal.

The report I prepared for the defence explored the background of themarriage and suggested that Mudassir had behaved in that way because he was

I 34 Conflicts

provoked by Sufia as she tried to extricate herself from an ill-arranged marri~ge,which her husband could not afford to abandon. However, counsel took the VIewthat my report was unlikely to prove influential, given the unusual and indeedunprecedented nature of my anthropological perspective. Hence my report v:asnot used so when the case came to trial she preferred to rely on an alternativesource of expertise, namely a psychiatrist's report which suggested that, havinggrown up in Bangladesh, Mudassir had been suffering from 'culture ~onflict' sincehis arrival in Britain, as a result of which he had become mentally disturbed. Thejury was unimpressed and Mudassir was found guilty of murder and sentenced tolife imprisonment.

Lies, all lies!Shangara Singh was born and brought up in a moderately prosperous family ?fJat Sikh farmers in the Punjab. He did reasonably well at school, ~nd e~rolled ma largely Punjabi-Ianguage degree course at a local college. Dunng hIS secondyear his family was approached by members of another Sikh family who hademigrated to the UK and were looking for a suitable rishta for their ~~ughterHarpinder, born and bred in the UK. A meeting between the two farnilies wasarranged, at which both Shangara and Harpinder signalled their approval of thematch. Preparations for the wedding began immediately and within a few weeksthey were married.

However, when Shangara applied for a visa to join his wife in the UK, it wasrefused. Still, Shangara entered the UK clandestinely and married his wife againin a civil ceremony before returning to India to lodge a further application to joinhis wife in the UK. Harpinder returned to India with him, so she was able toaccompany her husband to the High Commission in Delhi when he was called forhis interview. The visa was issued immediately.

However, moving to the UK proved to be a tough experience for Shangara ashis Punjabi qualifications were not recognised and his English was poo~. The onlyjob he could find was as a labourer/machine operator, and eve~ that job evapo-rated when the recession set in at the end of the 1980s. He remamed unemployedfor two years before he could find another job. Nevertheless, Harpinder was ableto step into the breach by taking up a job at the Post Office while Shangara filledhis time by involving himself even more actively in the Gurudwara. On the face ofthings, the family had become established and respectable members of the localSikh community.

However, whilst things seemed to be going reasonably well for Shangara,his wife had fallen in love with another Sikh who was a Ramgarhia (carpenter)rather than a Jat (peasant-farmer) by caste. Whilst the couple did their best. toconceal their relationship, news of the affair soon spread through the local Sikhcommunity, but Shangara remained oblivious to what was going on.

When Shangara finally discovered what his wife had been up to, he feltdeeply humiliated. So did Harpinder when Shangara confronted her, and she

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 135

took an overdose of drugs. When she recovered, Shangara suggested that a familymeeting should be called in an effort to resolve their disputes. The meeting washeld at Harpinder's parents' house and attended by her whole family, who wereequally ashamed at her behaviour. It was agreed that the only possible explana-tion for her aberrant behaviour was that she had been bewitched by herlover, and, since Shangara was a dutiful husband, the couple should reconcile.Although Harpinder wanted a divorce, in the circumstances she had littlealternative but to assent.

When Shangara returned home a few days later, the house was empty:Harpinder and the children had disappeared. Her family did not know where shewas either. Shangara felt extremely depressed and took to drinking. Some weekslater when the family received a call from the Police Domestic Violence Unit,Shangara decided to visit the woman police constable concerned. All he was toldwas that Harpinder was safe and well. It soon became clear that Harpinder andthe children were still living nearby; on several occasions she was seen sitting inher lover's car. Before long she openly began to attend social events within thecommunity in the company of her lover. Shangara's feelings of humiliation deep-ened yet further, especially when 'well-wishers' began to ring him up to ask pointedquestions about how he and his wife were getting on. Despite the dhane, a modusoioendi gradually emerged. Shangara began to accept that his wife had dumpedhim and that dissolution of their marriage was inevitable. He also began to see hischildren again. "-

Then it all fell apart. As he later described in his statement to the police:

Yesterday morning I was at my sister's place, where I had stayed overnight.Both my children were there. I got up early and went to my house to clean it,burn some incense, and say my prayers. As we doing so my nephew arrived,and we all went to do some shopping in the City Centre. After we got back wewaited for my missus to come back to collect the daughter and her car aftershe has finished work.

My son was playing outside. He came in and told me that mum hadarrived. Rani had dropped Harpinder off, so she could pick up our daughter.Since some letters had arrived in the post, I suggested that we should go backhome to pick them up; Harpinder agreed, because she wanted to retrieve acouple of her suits that she had left behind.

Whilst we were driving over, I took the opportunity to try to persuade herto agree to come back, or at least to refrain from appearing with other men inpublic until things had been properly sorted out between us. But she didn'tsay anything in response.

I opened the front door and she followed me into the house. We sat in thefront room. As she opened her letters, I took the opportunity to beg her torefrain from keeping company with other men until we had sorted out ourfuture. But all she told me was that as far as she was concerned, she could doas she liked. I begged her to mend her ways, at least for her parents' honour,

I 36 Conflicts

and also to think about the future of our children. She wasn't interested. Sheonly said that she wanted her own house. I told her I was prepared to buy heranother house, but only on condition that just she and the kids would staythere. Having told me that anybody she wished would have to be able to staythere, she went upstairs to fetch the suits.

I sat downstairs feeling confused. Harpinder had never spoken to me likethat before - posing awkward questions, and continually confronting andchallenging me. All sorts of thoughts were running through my head. Whathad become of us? How could she have become so inconsiderate and distanttowards me? What could I do? Everything has happened right before me: theaffair, the sex in my own house, and in my own bed. I had not done anythingwrong. Was I a man, or what? She had been living at another man's house forthree months, but what could I do?

Then she called me upstairs. She was in the back bedroom, and wanted toknow if the suits she had chosen to take away were OK. As I looked at thesuits, she repeated her demands for a house. I told her: 'The more passive andsoft I am towards you, the more cruelly and inconsiderately you have treatedme.' I asked her: 'What will become of the children, and most especiallyAmrita (who was living with her)? How will she respond to all these influencesas she grows up?' Harpinder told me that she couldn't care less, and thatI could always go to court if I wanted the children back.

Then I told her: 'If you won't come back for me, please come back for thechildren's sake.' She said: 'I'm not coming back to you. Who are you to tell mewhat to do?' Then she told me how much she had enjoyed sex with that man.She was trying to provoke me, she was trying to antagonise me whilst I wassaying: 'I beg you, I implore you to come back home.' I was holding out myhands, telling her that there was nobody else for me in this country without her.

She pushed me away, and I pushed her back, trying to calm her down.Then she hit me; there's a mark here [indicating his bottom lip]. Then Ibecame extremely angry and lost my senses. I hit her a few times-I don'tknow where-but it was just with my hands. I was so angry that she had saidthese things about me and my children. It all came together: all those telltaleslips of paper with writing on them. I had never hit her before, or got angrylike I was this time. But she knew she had crossed the line by saying thingsthat she shouldn't have said.

Then Harpinder picked up a piece of rope from the floor and held it outin front of her, taunting me by telling me that ifI really had any guts I woulduse it to put my threats into practice; then she taunted me by telling me thatI hadn't the balls to do it. At this point Ijust blew up.

All I can remember is her putting the rope around her neck. She thoughtI was going to back off. She wrapped the rope around her neck several timesand held out the two ends of the rope towards me, saying: 'Here you are, killme, kill me if you've got the guts!' I don't know what happened then, she was

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 137

antagonising me, she was provoking me, I don't know what happened. Afterthat she fell on the floor.

I couldn't think what to do. We don't have a phone in the house, but shecarries a mobile phone. I took it out to seek help, and made calls to my sister'shouse and my in-laws' house. After that the police came.

Although the police were deeply sceptical as to the accuracy of Shangara'sassertions, he consistently stuck to the story in successive interviews. He readilyadmitted that Harpinder's death was caused when he pulled the ends of the rope,although he could not actually remember doing so. He insisted that it was she whohad wound the rope round her neck in the first place.

I received instructions from Shangara's solicitors to prepare an expert reportand carefully examine what he told the police in successive interviews, as well asthe proof of evidence that his solicitor had prepared on his behalf. Having doneso I came to the conclusion - in the light of my experience of the dynamics ofinterpersonal relationships in Punjabi contexts - that Shangara's account of theescalating series of confrontations between himself and his wife, which eventuallyled Harpinder to hurl ever more humiliating dhane in his direction, were in myopinion entirely plausible.

It follows that Shangara would have sound grounds for entering a plea ofnot guilty to murder, but guilty oC manslaughter in the face of humiliatingprovocation. However, that was not the way in which the case was argued incourt. Shangara's point that his wife had used a rope as a means of subjectinghim to taunts was dismissed by his QC as silly and irrelevant, as he believedno English jury would ever accept such tittle-tattle. Hence, Shangarahad to drop that part of his account. Shangara had little alternative but toconcur. He altered his proof of evidence, which was in due course disclosed to theprosecution.

After I sent my expert report to his solicitor I was informed that Shangara hadchanged his position and that I should consequently excise all references to tauntsfrom my report. The defence was going to rely on a more straightforward argu-ment that Shangara had been psychologically disturbed as a result of his wife'sadultery.

Nevertheless, I was asked to attend the court proceedings, where I witnessedShangara being destroyed in the witness box by the prosecuting QC. He relied onShangara's initial statement to the police. Why, he asked, had Shangara inventedthe unbelievable story about his wife winding the rope round her own neck? Andifhe had lied about that - having taken care to extract an admission from Shangarathat his story had indeed all been a lie - he promptly went on to ask why a self-confessed liar should expect the jury to believe anything else he might say abouthis relationship with his wife?

The jury dismissed Shangara's plea of manslaughter and found him guilty ofmurder.

I 38 Conflicts

A humiliated wife reaps vengeance

Mussarat Siddiqui was arrested for murder, having poured petrol on her hus-band's genitals and set him on fire. I was instructed by the defence .to prepare areport on the underlying cultural and familial issues.As usual, the tensions betweenMussarat and her husband Saleem turned out to be as complex as they were long-

standing. S d c. il .Mussarat was born and brought up in a moderately prosperous ye lam y m

Karachi, and was only 16 when she married Saleem. The couple met wh~nSaleem was attending his cousin Tariq's marriage to Zaheeda, where he fell mlove at first sight with the bride's sister, Mussarat. As Mussarat was the youngestin the family, there was no great urgency about marrying her o~. Ne~ertheless,Saleem persisted in his suit with great vigour. Eventually ~ussarat. s family agreedto the match, although not without considera~le res.ervatlOns:~helr d.aughter wasstill very young and their acquaintance/relation with Saleem s family was rela-tively slight. In addition, as non-Syeds, Saleem's family was of significandy lov:er

status. However, on the other hand, such a match was strategically attractivebecause of Saleem's excellent career prospects as a merchant navy officer andhis family's substantial transnational connections. Saleem's father had alreadyestablished himself in the UK. Mussarat appeared to have been swept off her feetas a result of being pursued by a dashing young officer. . .'

In the event, however, marriage turned out to be somethmg of a dlsappOl~t-ment. Saleem's ship was only docked in Karachi for a few mor~ days, after whichhe sailed away for a full 12 months. Mussarat asked her in-laws If she :ould returnto her parents' house to await her husband's return, but ~heyrefused; mstead, theyinsisted that she should fulfil her duties as a daughter-m-law. She found herselfreduced to the position of domestic drudge to a houseful of str,ange.rs.

In due course Mussarat found relief when her husband s ship retur~ed toport and after obtaining a passport, she accompanied her husband on hISnextvoyage. However, she was dumbfounded by her husband's behaviour when they

FazfcS=QcS=Q

\ The Siddiqui biraderi

IAisha Q = cSAleem

1I

Q=cSShameem

1Saleem cS= Q Mussarat-.

cSAleem Q Kiren

Tariqd = Q Zaheeda

1ZahircS

1Sa/eem's Biraderi

Figure 6.2 Saleem'sbiraderi.

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 139

docked in a European port. Saleem took her out to a nightclub, where Mussaratwas shocked to find alcohol being served, and further embarrassed when drinkswere delivered by topless waitresses. Their relationship soon became strained onthe discovery that Saleem was not the upright Muslim she had assumed he was,and Saleem was equally disturbed by his wife's refusal to countenance +Iet aloneto participate in - his cosmopolitan lifestyle. Arguments followed. Saleem fre-quently lost his temper, whereupon he began to abuse Mussarat using foul andinsulting language. Whilst Mussarat was careful not to overstep the rules of pro-priety (a failure to do so would play directly into her husband's hands), she tookevery possible opportunity to respond in kind. She had no alternative but to put upwith the burden with which she had been saddled. However, their quarrels didnot interfere with their sex life and in due course Mussarat gave birth to threechildren.

Once the children were born, she ceased to accompany him on board and set-tled in a house in the Birmingham suburb of Alum Rock, where Saleem's brotherAleem had a medical practice. Meanwhile, her husband continued to pursue anomadic lifestyle. In addition to his differences with his wife, Saleem's relationshipwith his children became equally shaky. After a particularly severe row with hisfather, his eldest son Ayaz left home. Soon afterwards, Saleem obtained a jobas a harbour master in Dar-es-Salaam, and persuaded his wife and daughterto come and join him. Their relationship did not improve, however, but deterio-rated to the point that Saleem attempted to divorce Mussarat. But when Aleemlearned of his brother's plans, he flew to Dar-es-Salaam and managed to patch upa compromise, not least because he was concerned that their cousin Tariq's mar-riage to Mussarat's sister Zaheeda would come under severe strain if Saleem wasto divorce Mussarat. This only temporarily deterred Saleem. As an insurancepolicy - and also as a means of increasing his bargaining power - he obtained atalaq (Islamic divorce) on his subsequent visit to Pakistan, although he did not tellanyone about it.

By the time he got back to Dar-es-Salaam, Mussarat had returned to the UK.Thereafter he played the role of visiting father and husband, demanding all sortsof privileges (including sexual access to his wife) whenever he returned home. Hischildren became increasingly disgusted by their father's behaviour.

Matters came to a head after Mussarat found herself entertaining a partyof her husband's kinsfolk, who arrived without warning in the new house thatSaleem had bought. He did not stay to entertain them and Mussarat and the chil-dren were left in the shameful position of having to do so. Saleem did notcome home until after the guests had departed, whereupon Mussarat made noeffort to prepare food for him. Nevertheless, as she went upstairs to the bedroom,Saleem indicated that he expected her to entertain him when he came up to joinher, since he would be returning to his ship within a day or two. When Saleemeventually came upstairs, Mussarat ignored her husband's earlier observation,and instead took the opportunity to question him about his future plans, and

.most especially the prospect that he might be planning to divorce her in favour

140 Conflicts

of his sister-in-law Ayesha's niece. Having overheard parts of a whispered conver-sation between her husband and Ayesha whilst they were still living in the flatover Dr Aleem's clinic, she suspected that the two were hatching a plot to dissolvehis marriage to Mussarat so as to enable him to marry Ayesha's niece fromKarachi.

In the face of this onslaught from his wife, Saleem took the opportunity to raisethe stakes. Far from seeking to reassure Mussarat, he told her that she had betterhave a look in his brother Aleem's safe, where she would find the talaq he hadobtained in Karachi six years earlier: in other words they were already divorced.If she so wished, he was quite ready to announce that they had in fact beenliving in sin for the past six years,. whereupon she would lose her reputation f~rmodesty. On the assumption that he had trapped his wife in an untenable POSI-

tion, he instructed her to go and fetch the massage oil to help his performance inthe bedroom.

This was too much for Mussarat. Saleem was lying naked on the bed with hisprivate parts exposed, so instead of fetching the massage oil she brought the canof petrol, poured its contents over Saleem and set it on fire, before rushing out ofthe room, terrified of retaliation. Saleem subsequently died of his burns.

Although Mussarat was charged with murder, the jury found her guilty ofmanslaughter.

A miscarriage of justice?

In this case I was instructed by the police rather than the defence when the inves-tigating officersapproached me for assistance with a challenging conundrum. Theywere dealing with the case of a young Muslim man who had been found stabbedto death in his car. The young man's girlfriend, who had recently discovered thatshe was pregnant, belonged to a local Bengali family," and the police had reason tobelieve that he had lost his life in an honour killing, planned and executed by hisgirlfriend's father and two brothers, in revenge for impregnating their daughter/sister. However, there was one obvious weakness in their case: whilst they hadDNA evidence that directly associated the younger brother (who was only 14 yearsold when the murder took place) with the killing, they only had circumstantialevid~nce with respect to the older brother and the father's participation in whatthey took to be an honour-based crime. They were looking for an expert whowould be in a position to substantiate their hypothesis.

Having warned the investigating officers that my duty lay to the court ratherthan to those instructing me and that I would in consequence make up my ownmind about the matter, I agreed to go ahead and prepare a report. The police sentme a large bundle of witness statements, together with the case summary preparedby the prosecution. My first task, as always, was to work out who was who withinthe family, an exercise which produced the following result:

Israb Ali, the head of the family, had settled in the UK many years ago, and hisson Chomir, aged in his early 40s, had arrived in his late teens, followed by his

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 141

wife Hasna a few years later. Hasna subsequently gave birth to three children:Manna, who was 18 at the time of the incident, Mujib, who was just over a yearyounger and Mamnoor, who was aged 14.

However, after a couple of hours of digging into the statements provided by thepolice, I came to the conclusion that there was something seriously wrong with theprosecution's hypothesis. It became clear that by the time of Arash's death it wasno secret to the family that Manna was bearing Arash's child, as negotiations werein train for a marriage between them to be arranged, hence legitimizing theirrelationship as well as their unborn child. However, their developing relationshiphad not been problem-free. Manna had moved out of the family home more thana year earlier following a bitter argument with her younger brother Mujib, whohad objected vigorously to her involvement with Arash. But despite leaving homeManna kept in touch with her mother and her youngest brother by telephone.During the fasting month of Ramran when she was three months into her preg-nancy, she rang her mother and asked if she could come home. It appeared thather mother had welcomed her back, despite her pregnancy and, indeed, thereappeared to be talk of the family formally approaching her boyfriend's parents tonegotiate a marriage.

More significantly, it also turned out that, having come back home, Mannawent out with Arash and his friends every evening, and that she had been waitingfor him to pick her up on the evening of his death. Arash never used to come intothe house but waited outside in his car for Manna. On one occasion her mothersent out some post-iftar food to Arash, which is very significant because inSouth Asian contexts the giving and receiving of food is an overt signal of mutualsocial acceptance. Also, Mamnoor appeared to have liked Arash: as it turnedout that he had gone and lit a candle at his grave prior to his arrest. At the pointwhen the murder took place, the only person who appeared to be actively hostileto Manna's involvement with Arash was her younger brother, Mujib. In otherwords, my examination of the internal dynamics of the family led me to concludethat it offered no support for the prosecution's hypothesis. To be sure, Arashhad been killed, and it seemed clear that there was at least some kind of familyinvolvement in his death, given that the murder weapon was a knife belonging toMujib. In my opinion, further explanations were required. I informed the investi-gating officers of my preliminary conclusions, but as was appropriate theyinstructed me to complete a full report. Having done so, I reached the followingconclusion:

Although it must still be regarded as hypothetical at this stage, the explana-tion which best fits the facts of this case is that Mujib was driven byall-consuming jealousy of his sister, and overwhelming feelings of bitternesstowards his sister's violator. Such a motivation is in my opinion far moreconcordant with the circumstantial evidence than the suggestion that thiswas an 'honour killing' coordinated by Chomir Ali and executed by histwo sons.

142 Conflicts

If so, the result of the DNA analysis of the items contained in the Tescobag becomes a key issue. I do not know whether Mujib and his brother areof a similar size and build, such that Mujib (or an accomplice) couldhave donned Mamnoor's clothes. If such a possibility is plausible, it followsthat a query must be placed against the current interpretation of the presenceof Mamnoor's skin particles and sweat precipitated by the DNA findings.Could it be that the contamination occurred prior to the assault? Just thesame question needs to be asked of contamination of the murder weaponitself.

It was clear that my findings ran contrary to the investigating officer's expecta-tions, but by now the trial was only a few weeks away and so she forwarded itto the QC handling the prosecution. Sometime later I rang the investigatingofficer and learned that the prosecution did not intend to rely on my report,but that it would be disclosed to the defence as unused evidence. I jokinglyresponded that I expect to receive urgent calls from those preparing Chomir'sand Mamnoor's defence, since my analysis of what had gone on was clearly intheir favour. Surprisingly, my phone remained silent, and in due course I learnedthat Chomir, Mujib and Mamnoor had all been found guilty and sentenced tolife imprisonment.

I was most perplexed, and set about exploring what had happened at the trial.As I did so, I became ever more concerned. One of the most striking featuresof the trial was the paucity of evidence brought forward by the defence.Although both Mujib and Mamnoor had given evidence in the witness box,Chomir had chosen (or more likelyhad been advised) not to do so. Although bothManna and her mother had prepared witness statements for the defence but hadbeen advised not to attend the court because they would be called to give evidencein due course, the call never came. Nor were any of Arash's and Manna's closefriends called to give evidence. Hence, other than the evidence offered by two ofthe defendants, all the witnesses of fact who gave evidence were called (andselected) by the prosecution. No expert evidence was called by either side. As aresult the prosecution was successfullyable to argue that the three male membersof the family had been motivated by a determination to protect the family'shonour.

At a later stage of my exploration of the trial documents, I also discovered thatan alternative and potentially promising line of enquiry on which the police hadinitially embarked was suddenly dropped for no obvious reason and that theirdecision had been accepted by all three defence teams. The defence strategy wasnot so much to undermine the prosecution case by challenging the evidence it hadset before the court, but rather to argue that the prosecution had produced insuf-ficient evidence. With this in mind they had developed extensive legal argumentswhich they put before the judge at the outset of the trial and again at the half-waystage (after the prosecution had set out their case) suggesting that the proceedingsshould be halted because the prosecution had produced insufficient evidence to

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 143

support their case. In the light of this strategy, the objective of their disinterest illcalling any additional evidence on their own behalf became quite clear. By failillgto add to the stock of evidence set before the court, some of which might be totheir disadvantage (most especially so in the case of Mujib), they strengthenedtheir argument that there was insufficient evidence for the matter to be putbefore the jury. However, the very experienced trial judge was unimpressed bythese tactics: he threw out the defence arguments and let the trial proceed to it~conclusion. The defence were ill-prepared for such an outcome and their clientswere all in due course found guilty of murder.

Was this an equitable outcome? And if not, how should it be appealed? 'I'h«vast majority of appeals against conviction in the criminal court are made 011

points oflaw, most usually on the grounds that the trial judge had mishandled thecourse of the proceedings or that he had misinstructed the jury. With hindsight, itbecame obvious that the defence strategy had been devised with precisely such apossibilityin mind. Indeed that strategy was in due course implemented by Mujib'scounsel.Leave to appeal was granted, but in due course his argument that trialjudgehad failed to alert the jury might have been his brother's accomplicewas thrown outby the Court ofAppeal (Reginav Mujibur Rahman). In the meantime, Chornir andMamnoor were left high and dry: as I write, they have served five years of theirsentences.

In addition to mounting appeals on points of law, there are two further butsubstantially more difficult grounds on which an application can be reviewedby the Court of Appeal: firstly by the introduction of new evidence which wasunavailable during the course of the trial; and secondly on grounds which standat the outer limits of admissibility, namely that the defendants were less than com-petently represented by counsel. Given that the bar is a tightly knit community,the latter is exceedingly difficult to pursue. Those who routinely identify eachother as their 'learned friends' are extremely reluctant to impugn each others'professional competence. As for 'new evidence', all the evidence that might haveprecipitated a different outcome was readily available at the time of the trial. If thedefence had chosen to use it by, for example, calling Manna and her mother togive evidence, or by calling me to do so from an expert perspective, they couldreadily have done so. Moreover, the defence could have also made a much closerscrutiny of the 'unused evidence' collected by the police had they chosen to do so.

As I worked through all this material in the aftermath of the trial, I realised thatwhen the police had instructed me at the outset they had been significantly eco-nomical with the documentary evidence they had chosen to send me. Two issueswere of particular significance. In the first place it became clear that they hadfailed to include witness statements suggesting that evidence which appeared toimplicate Chomir in the disposal of the murder weapon might have been a set-up;secondly, and even more egregiously, the unused evidence cast severe doubts onthe wisdom of the police to abandon the alternative line of investigation by whichthey had set considerable store before the DNA evidence apparently implicatingMamnoor had become available.

144 Conflicts

In the immediate aftermath of Arash's death, the police made two arrests:first, of Mujib and, secondly, of his close friend P, also of Bangladeshi origin. Bothvigorously denied having been in any way involved in Arash's death and bothproduced alibis. In P's case, he produced evidence that he had been working inhis father's restaurant at the time when the incident took place. It was on the basisof this alibi that P was eventually released without charge. However, carefulexamination of the unused evidence threw a great deal of light on the reasons whyinitial suspicion fell on both Mujib and P. It turned out that P and Arash had anextensive history. Prior to his involvement with Manna, Arash had been going outwith another young Asian girl, Q, who had subsequently become P's girlfriend.However, in the aftermath of the collapse of Qs relationship with Arash, shedeveloped bitterly hostile feelings towards Arash on the grounds that he had'dumped' her, and also towards Manna considering it was she who had caused herto be dumped. As a result, P was under pressure to regard Arash with hostilityfrom two sides: from his new girlfriend, and also from his best friend Mujib, whowas equally hostile to Arash because he was interfering with his sister's 'modesty'.There was evidence of several violent confrontations between P and Arash.Moreover, there was even evidence to suggest that P had boasted of having 'doneaway with Arash' in a nightclub a few days after the murder.

Taken together with my profound concern that the internal dynamics ofManna's family provided no support for the argument that her father and youngerbrother were actively hostile to the prospect of her marrying Arash (which wouldby definition do away with any thought that their relationship was dishonourable),let alone of them having any interest in getting rid ofhim/punishing him throughan 'honour killing', this material (to which I only gained access long after the trialwas over) opened up an entirely different perspective on the circumstances ofArash's murder. It was indeed an 'honour killing' of a sort, organised and in allprobability implemented by two young men who felt that they had been 'dissed',but who had taken great care to cover their steps by arranging the evidence insuch a way that it suggested that other members of Manna's family were also theperpetrators.

Whether or not this hypothesis would hold good if it was explored in open courtI do not know. All I can say is that it would appear to offer a greater fit with allaspects of the evidence than was the hypothesis on the basis of which Chomir andhis two sons were convicted. However it is no means clear as to whether there isany prospect of these issuesbeing systematically reconsidered. Applications to theCourt of Appeal are normally made either on points of law, as the result ofthe emergence of new evidence which was not available to the defence when thetrial was held, or in the form of criticismsof the trial judge's handling of the trial. Inthis case neither of these approaches seem likely to have significant degree of trac-tion. If my analysis is anywhere near correct, Chomir and Mamnoor were let downby preferred strategy of their legal representatives - namely to present the mini-mum possible amount of evidence, in the hope that they would be able to persuadethe trial judge that insufficient evidence had been adduced for it to be safe for the

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 145

matter to be placed before the jury. That strategy clearly failed. But do Chomir andMamnoor have any prospect of seeking redress in the aftermath of this outcome?

All the professional advice I have so far received suggests that they do not, onthe grounds that the defendants had every opportunity to instruct counsel in therun-up to the trial, as well as during the hearing itself. Since counsel are taken notjust to be representing their clients, but doing so in the light of specific instructions,it follows- so I am informed - that if the defendants were dissatisfiedwith the wayin which they were being represented, they should have made that plain before, orat the very least during the course of, the trial. Having failed to do so, they conse-quently have no grounds on the basis of which to launch an appeal - except,perhaps, on what appears to be a wholly unprecedented route: namely that thattheir right to fair trial, guaranteed under Article 6 of the European Conventionof Human Rights, was so severely compromised by the way in which they wererepresented that the basis on which they were convicted deserves comprehensivere-examination.

A concluding commentaryIf I have learnt anything from my experience of providing expert reports in hom-icide trials it is that no two cases are the same. Nevertheless, virtually all the casesthat have come my way display a number of commonalities. What, though, aboutthe concept of 'honour killing' itself? Is it of any legal utility? By definition anycrime so labelled is ipsofacto a cultural crime - in the sense that such an offence canonly be committed in a context where issues of honour and modesty loom large.From that perspective, all of the cases I have highlighted in this chapter, andindeed all of the cases in which I have prepared expert reports have been 'honourkillings'. But should all incidents of homicide that occur in South Asian contextsconsequently be identified as honour crimes, such that they attract automaticallyexemplary punishment? I think not.

Cultural conventions merely set the conceptual premises within the contextof which social interactions occur; and whilst those premises consequently setthe framework within which actors routinely order their behaviour in that par-ticular context, they do not determine either the contents of the actors' behaviour,or their motivations. But this is not to suggest that either behaviour or motivationare unaffected by the cultural context within which they are articulated. As lin-guists have long since acknowledged, whilst grammar necessarily conditionsspeech, it in no way determines the content of our utterances; if so it follows thatculture (at least in the sense which I have defined it here) similarly conditions, butdoes not determine, human behaviour. At the same time it is vital to avoid fallinginto a further pitfall, namely the erroneous assumption that culture can safely beregarded as a fixed and static entity which permanently enshrines the uniquenessof ones' nation, one's community or one's identity, or, - from a more criticalperspective - an irrational obstacle whose central consequence is to inhibit anyprospect of movement towards progressive modernity.

146 Conflicts

Culture, anthropology and ethno-sensitivity:a rationale for the deployment of a 'culturaldefence'?There is now an extensive literature advocating cultural defence (Kymlika 200Iand Renteln 2004),which has in turn begun to spawn a tide of argument rejectingthe legitimacy of such an approach, primarily on the grounds that those whoadvance such arguments tend routinely to essentialise the concept of culture, andthat they consequently seek to argue that when behaviour is culturally driven - asin 'honour killing' for example - the perpetrators' motives should be approachedwith sympathy and understanding. In a recent volume entitled Multiculturalismwithout Culture Phillips (2007) applies this argument with some vigour.

So where does the line of argument I have developed here stand in the light ofPhillips's critique? Whilst I have argued that an ethno-sensitive approach to serv-ice delivery is a prerequisite to achieving equitable outcomes, it should by now beclear that in no way have I suggested that the distinctive premises in terms ofwhich the participants in my case studies operated determined their ?ehaviour.To be sure those premises conditioned their behaviour, but the behaviour of theperpetrators turns out to be driven by a wide range of em~tions a.ndmotivations.In other words, these mysterious 'alters' turn out, on close mspectIOn,not to ~e.sodifferent from 'us' after all. Hence, I find myselfwholly in agreement with Philhpswhen she argues that:

The suggestion here is that cultural evidence works best when it ena~~esjudges and juries to fit the defendant's actions into a pattern already fa~illarthrough mainstream culture; that in the end, it is the sameness not the differ-ence that matters ....

Cultural arguments work when they enable judges and juries to fit whatmight otherwise be deemed extreme or incomprehensible behaviour intofamiliar patterns. Chiu puts it thus: 'The jury will process evidence aboutanother seemingly foreign and different culture only to the extent that thejury can relate to it and understand it. Thus, where the jury finds comm?nground with the defendant, its deliberation and verdict becomes an exercisein recognizing cultural sameness, not difference'. .

The difficulty with a cultural defence is that it mobilises culture m waysthat encourage absurdly large generalisations about people from particularcultural groups. If it could be mobilised in the more nuanced way that hascome to be available in relation to gender or class, this would be a majoradvance.

(Phillips 2007: 96-9)

The core issue here is what is meant by 'culture'. Whilst I am arguing that evi-dence of things said and done in cultural contexts which are unfamiliar to the jury(and indeed to most other participants in the proceedings as well)will need to be

Honour killing? Or just plain homicide? 147

carefully contextualised if it is ever to be properly understood, I am most certainlynot suggesting my contextualising effort can or should be used as an excuse forcriminal malfeasance. Rather, I am suggesting that if the jury is to interpret theevidence before it on an equitable basis, and above all to avoid reading it throughthe distorting premises of its members' own taken for granted assumptionsand stereotypes, it is essential that they should have access to an ethno-sensitive'translation' of the things said and done into a conceptual framework with whichthey themselves are familiar. In the absence of such a perspective, there is a stronglikelihood that they will grasp the wrong end of the stick.

Like most legal systems, English law distinguishes between deliberate acts ofmurder and much less deliberate acts of manslaughter, in which the perpetratorwas subjected to an unbearable level of provocation. This is not a culturallygrounded distinction; rather, it appears to be one which is widely applicable,regardless of the cultural context in which it occurs - even if just what kindsof actions cause intense provocation vary from context to context. In thesecircumstances, the demands of equity appear to be quite straightforward. Butthis certainly does not mean that issues of culture are irrelevant to the process ofdistinguishing between murder and manslaughter.

Yet just what is the role of an anthropological expert in the midst of all this?The more active I have become in fulfilling this role, the more I have becomeaware of the contradictions that surround it. The essence of my role is clearenough: it is to use my expertise and specialised knowledge of a particular subjectbeyond the experience of the average person to provide the court, and especiallythe finders of fact, with a greater degree of insight into the significance of theevidence laid before them.

My role as a context-setter, which is one of the most crucial dimensions of myjob, is not just to illuminate the premises which underlay the behaviour of thepersons whose actions are being explored in the course of the proceedings. Rather,if I am to fulfil my task effectively I have to find some way of acting not just asa translator but as an interpreter or, in other words, to enable my audience to'see though' the cultural specificityof the evidence they have heard, the better tograsp its underlying logic.

However, as we have seen, the expert is in no sense a free agent in the courseof his efforts. Even though all my reports contain a phrase indicating that myanalyses, arguments and conclusions are my own professional opinion and are notinfluenced by pressures exercised by those instructing me, my room for manoeu-vre is in practice tightly restricted. Counsel recruit, instruct and utilise experts andtheir reports on a tactical basis - as is only too clear in my case studies.

This in no way suggests that anthropologists can or should seek to replace therole of counsel, judges and still less of juries in the course of legal proceedings.Nevertheless, it is to suggest that when the evidence before them has to do withthings said and done in cultural and conceptual arenas with whose internal logicthe court is not immediately familiar the outcome is likely to resemble that of alottery in the absence of an enhanced degree of ethno-sensitive awareness.