A mother of seven children who was convicted of the “despicable” and “heinous” murder of three of those children and her husband’s first wife has begun serving her life sentence in a federal penitentiary in Kitchener, Ontario, Cancrime learned. Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, (inset) was quietly transferred recently to Grand Valley Institution, a 15-year-old federal facility for women who are serving sentences of two years or more. Yahya’s husband Mohammad Shafia, 58, and her eldest son Hamed, 21, were moved to maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario, last week, Cancrime revealed previously.
Three members of a Montreal family have been imprisoned for life after a jury found them guilty of murdering four other family members in a crime the judge called “cold-blooded, shameful murders” based on a “twisted notion of honour.” Mohammad Shafia, 58, (inset) his second wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, were each found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder after a jury deliberated for 15 hours. The verdicts came after a three-month-long trial that heard from 58 witnesses.
Jurors who will decide the fate of three members of a Montreal family accused of murdering four others have three options, they were told Friday (jan 27) by the judge presiding over the case. The 12 jurors can find each accused guilty of first- or second-degree murder or they can find them not guilty, Judge Robert Maranger of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said, in his closing remarks to jurors. Maranger completed reading his 240-page address just after 4 p.m.
Three members of Montreal family decided four other troublesome family members had to be killed because they would not bow to a strict cultural code of modesty and obedience, jurors at the Shafia murder trial were told on Thursday (jan 26). Crown lawyer Laurie Lacelle outlined the prosecution theory of a complex conspiracy as she completed her closing address to jurors who will decide the fate of Mohammad Shafia, 58, his second wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21. The trio pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder.
Mohammad Shafia (inset), an Afghan immigrant who brought his 10-member family to Montreal in 2007, had no motive to kill four of them and he did not have time to murder them on the morning they were found dead, jurors at his murder trial were told Tuesday. “They all drowned accidentally,” lawyer Peter Kemp, who represents Shafia, said, in his two-hour closing address to jurors.
The 21-year-old Montreal man accused, along with his mother and father, of murdering three of his sisters and his father’s first wife, will not testify at his murder trial, jurors learned Tuesday morning. Hamed Shafia (inset) will be the only one of the three accused not to take the stand in his defence. His mother, 
