Free Honour on Trial by Paul Schliesmann Page B

kept saying something about "police." When the parents left, the brother explained that the police had been at their house on April 17 — but that things at home were improving.
    When the brother left the office, Laramée recalled the conversation taking "a different bent" once more. Sahar and Geeti accused their brother of not telling the truth about how things were at home. Sahar told the vice-principal she didn't translate everything her father was saying because of his lies. "My sister and I are afraid in the house," Laramée recalled Sahar saying to her.
    The vice-principal also told court about another perplexing incident that April. Sahar was supposed to go on a school trip to a sugar bush. She showed up late and refused to go along. Sahar told Laramée that Zainab had been in a car accident.
    "Sahar explained to me that she was very preoccupied that her sister Zainab had been hospitalized and she was very worried about her," Laramée said. "She wished also to go see her. She did not want to take part in the sugar bush activity."
    Of course Sahar would be worried about Zainab and want to see her. But it was a lie. Her older sister wasn't in hospital, but had been hiding out at the women's shelter, leaving the family in total flux.
    On May 11, Geeti was expelled from school. She had had a run-in with her teacher and Laramée went to talk with her. "It was a hard lunch hour because Geeti was crying," Laramée said. "Geeti was very angry with her teacher." The teacher had spoken with Sahar who revealed a plot the girls had hatched to leave their home and go live on their own. When the teacher explained that it wasn't possible, that Geeti was too young, Geeti exploded.
    Thirteen-year-old Geeti, Mohammad and Tooba's sixth child (two other children, who cannot be named, were born between Sahar and Geeti), was the most defiant of the Shafia sisters. Closely resembling her mother Tooba in looks, Geeti also seemed to have inherited Tooba's strong will. She had told police she wanted to be out of the house and she wanted to be able to go out freely like her friends. She even asked to be placed with a foster family.
    The 75-minute interview with Geeti was difficult for Laramée. "I was also crying because I didn't know what to do anymore," she said. "Many events were piling up on each other."
    Over the course of the 2008-09 academic year, Geeti had missed 40 classes and was late 30 times. She had to be sent home one day for wearing a revealing sweater, makeup, and earrings considered inappropriate for a 13-year-old. "She was failing in all of her courses," said Laramée. "Things were going downhill fast. Geeti was practically not going to school."
    Geeti only wanted her freedom and to be with her beautiful older sister Sahar. The youngest of the four victims, Geeti was very close to Sahar. At the trial, the Crown presented a page of messages Geeti had written to Sahar, tragically poignant in hindsight: "i wish 2 god dat till im alive i'll never see u sad," she wrote. "i dont know if one day you leave this house wat am i gonna do????" "i promise before dying i'll make all ur wishes cum true one by one." As for the message in the centre of page, Geeti ultimately got her wish: "i hope we'll never be separted [sic]."
    There were even darker family dynamics at play, inside and outside the home. Sahar told Laramée that her younger brother was spying on her at school. He didn't like her friends and threatened to tell their father "she was a whore." Sahar would leave the house in the morning wearing long sweaters and modest clothes. At school she would put on makeup and earrings and more revealing clothes. She changed again before going home in the afternoon.
    Antonella Enea was one of Sahar's teachers during the 2007-08 school year at Antoine- de Saint-Exupéry. She was with Sahar and the vice-principal when the girl made her disclosures of abuse and the suicide attempt. It was at Enea's prompting that she did