{"id":3643,"date":"2009-01-16T17:50:13","date_gmt":"2009-01-16T17:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2009\/01\/16\/shafilea-parents-fight-to-overturn-inquest-verdict\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T11:31:10","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T11:31:10","slug":"shafilea-parents-fight-to-overturn-inquest-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2009\/01\/16\/shafilea-parents-fight-to-overturn-inquest-verdict\/","title":{"rendered":"Shafilea parents fight to overturn inquest verdict"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3>Case goes to the High Court<\/h3>\n<div><strong>THE PARENTS of a Warrington teenager who was found dead in a Cumbria river have gone to the High Court to challenge a coroner\u2019s ruling that she was \u2018unlawfully killed\u201d.<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Iftikhar Ahmed, father of 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed, was at the High Court today in a bid to have the verdict, passed by coroner Ian Smith last year, overturned, the Press Association reported. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Shafilea\u2019s remains were discovered by the bank of the River Kent in Sedgwick in February 2004 \u2013 five months after she had disappeared from her home in Warrington. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Her parents, Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed, were initially arrested and questioned in connection with their daughter\u2019s disappearance but they maintained their innocence and offered a \u00a35,000 reward for information. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>The Ahmed family are unhappy the coroner\u2019s verdict heightened speculation Shafilea may have been the victim of an &#8220;honour killing&#8221; after details emerged she had spent five weeks in hospital after drinking bleach during a trip to Pakistan where she feared she would be married. <br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nMr Ahmed was recently given permission to challenge the verdict at the High Court, arguing the coroner&#8217;s view was &#8220;biased&#8221; and should be replaced by an open verdict.<\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>An interim hearing took place today over a dispute about the family\u2019s right to see information gathered by the police. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>One of the family&#8217;s grounds of complaint is the coroner&#8217;s verdict may have been flawed because the police failed to provide the inquest with sufficient information from their investigations.<\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Michael Hartman, appearing for Mr Ahmed, said the father was seeking information about the movements of an individual believed to have been in a relationship with Shafilea.<\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>But John Bassett, appearing for David Whatton, Chief Constable of Cheshire, said the police were prepared to make certain disclosures &#8220;but not all the matters the family want&#8221;.<\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>The judge told Mr Ahmed&#8217;s lawyers to supply a detailed list to the police of the evidence they wish to be now disclosed in time for the judicial review of the coroner&#8217;s verdict.<\/div>\n<p>&#13;\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Case goes to the High Court THE PARENTS of a Warrington teenager who was found dead in a Cumbria river have gone to the High Court to challenge a coroner\u2019s ruling that she was \u2018unlawfully killed\u201d. &#13; Iftikhar Ahmed, father of 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed, was at the High Court today in a bid to have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}