Two Afghan asylum seekers murdered their sister over her western lifestyle by choking and hacking her to death, a court was told.
A German court heard how mum-of-two Maryam H was lured from a refuge in the country's capital Berlin by her younger brothers Yousuf, 27, and 23-year-old Mahdi.
Grim railway station CCTV showed images of the brothers lugging a duffle bag onto a train which is believed to have contained the 33-year-old's body.
Her dismembered remains were later found in a shallow grave 340 miles miles away in southern Germany.
The victim was the mother of a son aged 13, and a 10-year-old daughter.
Along with the children’s father, the family fled from Afghanistan to Germany to demand asylum in 2013.
After her marriage broke down, Maryam divorced her then-husband under German law in 2017.
But he reportedly refused to annul the marriage under Islamic law.
According to local media, when Maryam's brothers found out she had met someone new, they began to intrude in her life, forcing her to wear a headscarf and forbidding her from leaving her accommodation without a male escort.
Maryam's ex-husband also threatened her with death, leading to a restraining order being taken out on him.
Investigators believe Yousuf had asked Maryam to meet him on July 13 since he had found an apartment for her and the children.
She was declared missing the same day.
Accused brother Yousuf H, 27, is said to have sobbed 'crocodile tears' after breaking down during a prison visit to an elder brother, Jamal, who had been jailed for causing GBH.
A social worker at Berlin-Ploetzensee prison told the court: “They hugged for a long time. Yousuf just couldn’t stop crying.
“Jamal tried to comfort him. They were talking in their mother tongue so I didn’t understand a word.
“When we sat down, Yousuf regained his composure.”
Jamal confided in the same social worker again the following month to complain about his “ruined family” as he showed her an article about the killing.
She said: “Jamal came to me on August 9 last year with this article in a local newspaper.
“He was wailing and telling me that his family was destroyed now that his sister’s dead and his brothers are behind bars.
“But he also assured me that they had nothing to do with the killing.
“I approached a male colleague for support. I felt the need to deescalate the situation.”
The pair showed no remorse over their sister's death and said during police interrogations that she had dishonoured her family and that “a woman is like a servant.”
Maryam’s cut-up body was found in the small town of Holzkirchen near Munich on August 5, 2021, with an autopsy concluding that she had died from head and neck trauma.
The brothers were arrested shortly afterwards, while the verdict of the murder trial expected in October.
The two brothers - who face life sentences - refused to make any statement in court.
But they were quoted as telling investigators: "We treat women differently than you do.
"A woman is like a servant who does the housework, cooks and looks after the children."
Lawyer Roland Weber represents Maryam’s children, and told judge Thomas Gross: “They keep attending school. They are doing fine considering the extremely difficult situation they are in.”
Have you got a story to share? We want to hear all about it. Email us at yourmirror@mirror.co.uk
