Ihsan Ali and his wife, Zahraa Ali were charged with attempted murder and attempted kidnapping after they were filmed choking their 17-year-old daughter outside a school in Washington over her reported refusal to fly to Iraq for an arranged marriage to an older man, according to police and media reports from the past week.
Recordings of the incident outside Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington, also reveal Ali punching their daughter’s boyfriend, with the victim's identity being confirmed by the New York Post.
The Alis had pulled their daughter out of school two weeks prior, according to the father of the girl’s boyfriend.
“So she runs away from home because they wanted to fly her out of the country - she's afraid,” said Victor Barnes, the boyfriend’s father. “She shows up at the school and my son's class, and the teacher helps her because she looks very malnourished.”
Barnes also claimed that Ali attempted to kidnap his son two weeks before the incident - leading to the mother receiving a no-trespass order from the school.
While the school had arranged for her to hide somewhere safe, Barnes claimed they attempted to make her take public transport there without any chaperone to protect her.
The daughter had complained to police that “her father had recently been threatening her with honor killing for refusing an arranged marriage with an older man in another county,” according to police documents seen by the Post.
Attempts to escape
Fearing for her safety, the 17-year-old reportedly ran away on October 18 and informed school officials what was happening.
Learning of this, her parents showed up at her school and choked her “to the point where she had lost consciousness,” court documents said.
“It’s not right … you are not supposed to do this,” Ali reportedly told his daughter before she lost consciousness, the girl is said to have told police.
Other students, including the boyfriend, attempted to break up the attack but it was an adult passerby who saved her.“The dad was on his back, and his daughter was on top of him, and he had her in a choke hold,” Josh Wagner, who witnessed the incident and helped end the attack, told KOMO News. “It was pretty angering. I didn't know what was going on or why it was happening. All the kids were screaming and yelling.
“What I saw was the adult male had the teenager in a headlock, choking her from the back, so I removed his arm from her, and then she got up and ran with another kid, who, come to find out, was her boyfriend and she was the daughter of the adult male. So then I just held him on the ground till the police arrived and then handcuffed him and searched him and then moved him to the police car.”
The girl’s mother has also been accused of joining the assault, but the Mail reported she fled when help arrived.
Once she escaped the attack, she ran into the school yelling, “My dad was trying to kill me, he was trying to kill me,” leading the school to go into lockdown. The school has since secured the 17-year-old a safe place to reside.
North Thurston Public Schools told KOMO News in a statement, “We work with families, staff, and law enforcement partners to maintain safety and security on our campuses, and we take student and staff safety extremely seriously. When unique situations arise, we work with concerned parties to provide a safe learning environment, and we are doing so in this case.”
Child marriage in Iraq
Iraq has recently made headlines as a draft law being proposed would put Ali’s daughter well above the minimum age to marry.
The draft law, which passed its first reading in Iraq’s parliament earlier this week, would lower the minimum age of marriage to nine years, according to the Guardian.
The law’s supporters claimed those opposed were guilty of “moral decadence” and “following Western agendas.”
While Iraq’s current law, which has been in place since the 1950s, prevents marriages to persons aged under 18, the law is not closely followed, according to a UNICEF report - which found that over a quarter of women were married before they turned 18.