no one would talk to us. investigators tell us one way honor violence differs from other kinds of domestic violence is that the family often sides with the attacker, not his victim. in peoria, arizona, police claim that is what happened as they tried to capture faleh al-maleki who fled to europe by way of mexico. he spent two to three days in nogales and took a bus to hhermosillo and from mexico city flew to london. when they ran his passport they found an american warrant for h his arrest. within days he was flying back to the u.s. accompanied by federal marshalls. he landed in atlanta. peoria arizona police detectives were there waiting.
they interrogated him in this room at the airport. state your name, sir. okay. this case wasn t a who done it. my biggest interest was to find out why it happened. and to try to get al-maleki to confess to purposely running down noor and amal. i think you are a man that is trying to do the right thing by your family and by your kids and everything else, okay. i understand that. and what happens more often is that good people like yourself get into a situation and for a split second in their lives they make a very bad decision and i know this was not an accident. i lost control. i will not believe that you suddenly lose control of your car, no. you pointed your jeep at both of them and you struck them. i lost control and i don t
a tree. he looks out, noor. noor my baby is lying there. two vastly different accounts of what happened. who would the jury believe. the prosecution s first witness was charles cooper who worked at the welfare office and said he saw al-maleki rundown noor and amal and then run off. cooper was questioned by stephanie low, record s caisson tell. coal. can you tell us what you saw then? two females exited the building and then the screech of the tire and sounds of cracking and breaking and then the lady hits the ground. a bystander tearily recounted how she rushed to noor s aid after she was hit. i pushed the hair out of her face and i held her hand.
the defendant who committed these horrific and oh so wrong crimes all in the name of his sense of honor. bill: by presenting the case as an honor killing record arguably made the job easier for the defense team. ladies and gentlemen, this is the father of noor. if they could convince even one member of the jury to reject that motive, al-maleki would almost certainly be acquitted of first-degree murder and avoid a life sentence. it is common for iraqi men to no longer be called by their first name when they have a job but to take the name of their child. with al-maleki sobbing in the background she told the jury that what happened was an accident. he hits the curves and goes up on the median and runs over
bill: faleh al-maleki sat silent as the prosecution pressed its case that he murdered his daughter out of a twisted sense of honor. after the state rested, judge roland asked if al-maleki would take the stand in his own defense. is your client going to testify, counsel? mr. al-maleki has chosen not to testify today. without calling a single witness, the defense rested. counsel, are you prepared to give closing argument? in closing arguments the prosecution pounded away at the premeditated honor killing theme insisting it was the jury s duty to return a verdict of first-degree murder not second-degree or are even murder. the evidence proves way beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended, wanted, and desired to erase noor from