Two parents are facing charges after allegedly attempting to murder their 17-year-old daughter for rejecting an arranged marriage overseas to an older man.
The criminal charges against Ihsan Ali and his wife Zahraa Ali stem from an attack they’re accused of carrying out at their daughter’s school on Oct. 18 in Lacey, Washington.
According to court documents obtained by KOMO, Ihsan Ali was seen by multiple witnesses choking his teenage daughter “to the point where she had lost consciousness.” Investigators say his wife Zahraa also grabbed at her and choked her.
Authorities say the couple was trying to execute an “honor killing” for their daughter’s rebellion.
The teen told investigators that after refusing her parents’ wishes to put her on a plane to Iraq , where she would be married, she ran away and sought help from her school.
When her parents found her outside Timberline High School on October 18, her dad reportedly rushed out of his pickup and began screaming at his daughter in Arabic. Another student who understood what he was shouting intervened on his daughter’s behalf and told him to “leave her alone.”
This caused the girl’s dad to fly into a rage, court documents say, and attack his daughter.
A video that captured the incident shows a man, purported to be Ihsan Ali, holding his daughter down as multiple students try to pry him away, including the girl’s boyfriend.
“Get off of her! Get off! Get off!” one young voice screams in the video. “Call the cops! Somebody call the cops!”
Once the girl was able to escape her father’s grip, she ran into the school and told officials, “My dad is trying to kill me,” court filings state. The school launched a lockdown and refused to let the Alis inside the building.
Court documents state that during the attack, Ali also punched her daughter’s boyfriend, “who went flying onto the concrete.”
The boy’s dad, Victor Barnes, told Daily Mail that the Alis’ daughter and his son, who is Black, began dating in February, but the relationship between both families has been full of conflict. Barnes said that his family had suffered issues with the Alis for months and, at one point, their troubles with the family escalated to an incident that forced them to get a temporary protection order from Zahraa Ali.
Barnes claimed that two weeks before the attack, the girl’s parents made an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap his son from school.
School officials warned Zahraa Ali that her next visit to the school would end in trespassing charges, and Barnes got a restraining order for his son against her.
On the day of the attack, Barnes said the parents visited his home to ask about their child’s whereabouts. When Barnes told the Alis she might be at school, he texted his son to warn him ahead of their arrival.
After the attack, once the girl was safely separated from her parents, police were called to the school.
Both Ihsan and Zahraa Ali are facing attempted murder, assault, and kidnapping charges.
Barnes said the school told his son to walk their daughter to the city bus stop before the attack and expressed concern about why an adult couldn’t have escorted her, especially since the school knew about her situation.
“I’m glad he was there to save her life, but I need more explanation about why the adults were so careless,” he told FOX13Seattle.
The Alis’ daughter is now in the care of a local shelter.
