It is shortly before midnight in the Paderborn district of Sennelager. Police action in the street Am Heilandsfrieden. A man lies on the ground, a policeman ties him up.
The man on the ground is a murderer. He has cut his young wife’s throat in the passenger seat of her VW Golf car! In front of their three little daughters. The crime that took place outside the door of the house where the family lived reflects the tragedy of a Syrian refugee family.
The killer, who has been in custody since Thursday on suspicion of murder, is Wahid A. (29 years old). The victim, Nuha (20 years old), was his wife.
The two come from Idlib, a rebel stronghold in northern Syria, and got married at the end of 2014, when Nuha was less than 15 years old – and shortly afterwards pregnant.
In May 2015, Wahid A. left his wife behind in Idlib and made his way to Germany as a refugee. Nuha gave birth to twins and was allowed to go to Germany with the babies in October 2015 as part of the family reunion.
In 2017 Nuha gave birth to another girl at the age of 17.
What has now caused this disaster?
Djamal H. (name changed), a relative of the murderer who lives nearby, tells the newspaper Bild am Sonntag about the reasons. The marriage broke up a few weeks ago. Djamal: “Wahid was convinced that his wife was having an affair with her cousin. He then brought his children to me so that they would not have to witness the quarrel.”
Then relatives of the young wife, who live in Belgium, came to Paderborn. They tried to mediate to convince Wahid A. that there was no affair.
“On Tuesday, Wahid and his wife picked up the children from me. He told me that he had forgiven her,” Djamal H. told Bild am Sonntag. “Then they went downstairs.”
It is not a happy ending. It is the sheer horror!
Djamal H.: “A few minutes later Wahid rang my doorbell. He stood in front of me with the children and covered in blood. He said: ‘She has lied and betrayed me. I killed her and washed my honour clean of shame.”
Wahid A., who had last worked as a delivery man, called the police himself after the murder, led them to the corpse in the car.
According to the autopsy report, Nuha bled to death. The perpetrator slit her neck, stabbed her several times in the upper part of her body and head.
Wahid A. remains silent now.