Reply #63: A young Palestinian woman living in St Louis was killed [View All]

[ikojo]

by her dad in 1989 allegedly because she had become too Americanized and was dating a black kid. This was big news at the time, and was way before 9/11/01.

The article below is taken from a larger article about lawyers relating cases that will stay with them. The lawyer in this case is now the attorney for the City of St Louis.

http://www.stlmag.com/media/St-Louis-Magazine/February-2006/Accidents-Of-Justice/

Tina, multilingual and bright, was a popular student at Roosevelt High School and had already been awarded a college scholarship. In 1989, the FBI began to suspect that Tina’s father, Zein, was a member of an Abu Nidal terror cell. He was placed under surveillance, and the family’s apartment was bugged. What the FBI caught on tape was chilling.

Upset that their daughter was dating an African-American boy, Zein and his wife, Maria, hatched a plan to murder their daughter. When Tina arrived home one night in 1989, Maria—a big, strong woman—held her daughter down while Zein stabbed her almost 20 times with a butcher knife.

snip

Joyce-Hayes says, “There was a point where he was pricking around her left breast,” and even though Zein was speaking in Arabic, there was “a cadence to his speech.” When the tape, the translations and the photos were matched, Joyce-Hayes says, it became clear that Isa was taunting his daughter. “Are you going to be a good girl now?” he asked as he stabbed her.

snip

Both parents were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die. Zein became ill and died on death row. Maria’s conviction was overturned, and she was sentenced to life in prison without parole at her second trial.