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Parents, brother charged in Kingston canal deaths

by Barbara McPherson | July 23, 2009 at 01:07 pm

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The circumstances of the mysterious deaths four women found in a car in the Rideau Canal on June 30 are starting to be revealed. Three members of their immediate family have been charged with their murders. The parents and the brother of the teenaged girls have been charged in Kingston with the canal deaths.
Police were mystified at the time as to how the car could have fallen into the Rideau Canal as there were numerous and redundant safety devices to prevent such an occurance.

The girls' father, mother and brother all face four counts of first-degree murder each. The four bodies were discovered on June 30 in the Rideau Canal.

The victims are 19-year-old Zainab Shafi and her sisters Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13. The fourth victim is Rona Amir Mohammed, who was revealed to be Shafi's first wife. She was previously described as a cousin.

Police allege that the parents and their son all operated the car which was dumped in the canal, and that the father lied when he told police the deaths occurred by accident during a family vacation.

The family originally lived in Afghanistan and subsequently moved to Dubai, then moved to Canada. Cultural mores may have motivated the murders.

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Amy Judd

at 14:46 on July 23rd, 2009

This is terrible - the deaths of four women from the same family? It sounds very suspicious.

Blue Crush

at 19:56 on July 23rd, 2009

Police in Kingston are calling it a possible "honour killing." The 19 year old daughter was seeing someone the family didn't approve of.

A Montreal businessman charged with killing four members of his family conspired with his second wife and his oldest son to commit mass murder in a bid to restore his honour, relatives of one of the victims have told the Whig-Standard.

The family members allege that Mohammed Shafi had beaten his 19-year-old daughter Zainab and threatened recently to kill her and the woman he had passed off as his cousin.

She was his first wife, though he had concealed that fact since the family of three adults, all natives of Afghanistan, and seven children moved to Canada two years ago and settled in Montreal.

“We are convinced that this is a crime of honour, organized under the guidance of Mr. Shafi, his wife Tooba and their oldest son Hamed,” Diba Masoomi wrote, in an email sent to Kingston Police more than two weeks ago.