Murder of Pela Atroshi

Pela was the oldest of seven children. Pela and her family moved to Sweden from Duhok in Kurdistan Region in 1995. Pela started to challenge her father's rules, wanting to make her own decisions about where she went and what she wore, but this just resulted in stricter rules being imposed; he stopped the girls from going to parties and banned them from going on school trips. Pela eventually returned home of her own accord as she missed her family. A plan was already in place, however, to take her back to Dohuk, where the family were well respected and honor crimes were treated leniently. ==Murder==

In June 1999, shortly after Pela returned home, the family traveled to Duhok in Kurdistan together with her paternal uncles, Shivan, Rezkar and Dakhaz Atroshi. Conflict and quarrels followed and Pela was accused of not living according to Kurdish values. On 24 June 1999, Pela was shot twice in her back in an upstairs room of the family home. The shooting was carried out by Rezkar Atroshi. Pela's sister Breen testified that she and her mother had tried to go to Pela's aid, but that her uncles, and father, had physically separated them while Rezkar shot Pela through the head. ==Legal proceedings==

Duhok In October 1999, Agid and Rezkar Atroshi stood trial for Pela's murder in Turkey. Rezkar and Dakhaz Atroshi stood trial in December 2000. Breen Atroshi was a witness for the prosecution with lawyer Elisabeth Massi Fritz as counsel for the witness. The court found that the father and the uncles had planned and carried out the murder together. Rezkar and Dakhaz were found guilty on 12 January 2001 and sentenced to life in prison. Svea Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence in June 2001. The case was the first honor killing trial in Sweden. The sentences of uncles Rezkar and Dakhaz were commuted to limited durations of 24 and 25 years in prison and they were released after having served two-thirds of the time in 2016. ==Aftermath==

Breen lives under a new identity in Sweden, having been threatened for giving evidence against her uncles. it was believed that he was in hiding somewhere in Kurdistan. == See also ==