Dad who helped daughter’s ex-husband rape and murder her is found dead

The father suspected of involvement in his beauty therapist daughter’s “honour killing ” has died. Samia Shahid, 28, from Bradford in West Yorkshire, was allegedly raped and strangled by her ex-husband, her cousin Mohammed Shakeel, while visiting relatives in Punjab, Pakistan, in 2016. He is awaiting trial for her murder.

Samia with her first husband

Her father, Chaudhry Muhammad Shahid, 52, was accused of helping him and was released on bail.

But he died on Sunday in a hospital in Lahore, his family confirmed to the BBC although the cause of death has not yet been announced. Following her murder, it was initially claimed that Ms Shahid had died of a heart attack, but a post-mortem exam revealed she had in fact been strangled. Ms Shahid entered into an arranged marriage to her abusive cousin Shakeel at her family’s request, but the marriage quickly broke down. She secretly divorced and married her second husband, Syed Mukhtar Kazam, in Leeds in 2014 before the couple moved to Dubai. 

Samia pictured with her second husband

Mr Kazam now claims that his wife was killed because her family disapproved of their marriage. In a BBC programme called Murdered for Love?, Mr Kazam said he felt a “helpless” fear when he dropped his wife at the airport to travel to Pakistan to join her apparently ailing father and her family, who were in the country for a funeral. Days later, she was dead and her first husband and her father were arrested in connection with her murder.