Israeli Father Charged with Murder in ‘Honor Killing’ of Teen Daughter Who Was Dating a Muslim

Already categorically disapproving of his daughter’s relationship with an imprisoned Muslim man, the last straw for Israeli Christian father, Sami Karra, came with the news 17-year-old Henriette — estranged from her controlling family — intended to convert to Islam.

So he killed her. Allegedly.

Now, Karra has been charged in his daughter’s June 13 murder — an act of callous finality carried out to preserve the “family’s honor” after Henriette’s humiliating behavior, mother and wife, Aliham, told authorities.

In fact, just two weeks before the teenager was found dead, police say Henriette had no choice but to flee the family home and hide — staying with friends and, for a time, her boyfriend’s mother — just to escape the vitriol and violence perpetrated by her parents and family members, incensed over the contentious relationship.

Even the physical relocation didn’t place sufficient distance between the lovestruck teen and the catastrophic storm brewing in her former home.

According to Haaretz, one week before the murder, Henriette filed a report with police after allegedly being attacked by her mother. Then,

“A few days before the murder, her parents and two uncles came to see her at the home of a female friend with whom she was staying, in an attempt to convince her to return home. The police were called, but Henriette refused to accept help from the officer who responded on the scene. At 3 A.M. her father arrived, allegedly beating and threatening her.

“On June 11, two days before her murder, the police summoned Henriette and her parents for a joint meeting with a social worker. At the meeting, her parents asked Henriette to return home, but she said no. The social services proposed she enter a woman’s shelter or another framework. She refused and asked for help from the welfare authorities in paying for an apartment.”

After agreeing to stay with a relative, Henriette returned home later that night and attended a high school graduation celebration the following day — having been granted rare permission to go to a party. Explaining his seeming permissiveness, Karra told Aliham, according to the indictment,

“Forget about her, let her go to hell. It’s not worth another shekel to even chase after her, she’s garbage. We need to whip her, throw her away like a dog and see how she does. She’s already gone, I’m sick of her and you.”

Having added funds to her boyfriend’s prison canteen account on June 13, Henriette fatefully conveyed to a relative at home the young man would be released by the end of the week — and that she would be converting to Islam for him.

That relative, perhaps unaware of potential ramifications, informed Karra of his daughter’s plans — sealing her tragic fate.

Henriette was found with stab wounds to her neck, dead on her parent’s kitchen floor.

Karra indeed has a lengthy record of trouble with the law — including for intimidation and property violations — though his most recent conviction dates back to 2004.

A friend of the family described Henriette as generally happy teen who was “apparently a victim of all this complexity.”

For his part, the authoritarian patriarch seems disturbingly unflustered by the murder, stating flatly,

“Just like I sat in prison [in the past] I will sit in prison my whole life, I don’t care.”