
Pakistani authorities have arrested a man for murdering his 18-year-old daughter in Italy after she refused to marry the man her father had chosen for her. Shabir Abbas was arrested in his village in the southern province of Punjab following a tip-off from Italian authorities.
His daughter, Saman, was last seen last April by neighbors outside a house in the village of Novelara near the city of Reggio Emilia. A few days later, a security camera at Milan airport recorded the 18-year-old's parents, who were allegedly pressuring her to marry.
The arrest of the 18-year-old's father came days after a body was found in a shallow grave in an abandoned mansion near the girl's home in Italy. He claimed, according to Italian news agency ANSA, that his daughter is alive, claiming she was in Belgium.
Before her disappearance, the 18-year-old had told her boyfriend in Italy, who is also of Pakistani origin, that her parents wanted to marry her off to an older man and that she did not agree.
In connection with this case, the brother and uncle of the 18-year-old's father, Danis Hasnain, who are believed to have killed her, as well as her two cousins Ikram Ijaz and Nomanoulak Nomanoulak, who were in France and Spain, have been arrested.