"I'll kill you! And your little dog too!"

OK, Hamed Shafia didn't say those exact word directly to his sister Geeti, aged 13, on their sister Zainab's wedding day. When 19-year-old Zainab's husband-to-be arrived at the wedding reception alone -- unaccompanied by any members of his family -- Hamed told his sister "If you leave with him, I'm going to kill everyone here and then I'll kill myself."

And, even though the wedding was called off, that's just what he did. Or someone did. Late last year, Hamed Shafia was convicted of first-degree murder, along with his father, Mohammed Shafia, and mother -- Shafia's #2 wife -- Tooba Yahya.

The Ontario Superior Court jury found that the three of them had acted together to murder Zainab, and two of her sisters, Sahar, 17, and Geeti (the one with the little dog) and Rona Amir Mohammed, their father's first wife in his polygamous marriage. Their bodies were dumped into the Rideau Canal near Kingston, Ontario.

As reported in WWW in January, the convictions are being appealed, but journalist Ron Tripp isn't going to await the results of the appeal. His book on the most sensational "honour killings" ever to be perpetrated in Canada will be released by Harper Collins this coming week.

Without Honour: The True Story of the Shafia Family and the Kingston Canal Murders reports Hamed's threat, and details the layers upon layers of violence and control exerted by the Shafia men over the female members of the Muslim family. Here, from the book, are a few glimpses of life inside the brutally oppressive Shafia household.

• Sahar told a schoolmate just weeks before her murder that she was pregnant, although the truth behind that claim remains unknown;
• Before arriving in Canada, the Shafia family was kicked out of Australia, when trying to immigrate from Afghanistan, for violating the terms of their visa, a fact that contradicts evidence presented at their trial;
• The Shafia children got into trouble at a school in Dubai, including Geeti, who was suspended for kicking a teacher, and a younger brother (not named because of a publication ban) who was expelled when caught with pornography;
• A schoolmate, who did not testify at trial, said the girls' younger brother had told him that shunning Sahar at home was a Shafia family "rule" because she upset her father;
• Other school friends with stories of the girls' abuse at the hands of their father and brother Hamed, and others with accounts of the desperate ploys the girls used to avoid their father's wrath, were not interviewed by investigators or called to give testimony at trial.

Although the girls spoke out to friends, classmates and even teachers, there was no effective follow-up by provincial or local authorities. Mr. Tripp puts the lack of concern or action down to political correctness. When talking of the missed opportunities, the writer told an interviewer, "Teenaged girls trying to be teenaged girls is no rationalization for murder."

"The cultural sensitivities among organizations and institutions [suggested] that we need to allow this family to preserve their culture, and that is a noble goal," he said. But the good intentions meant that a dangerous family situation went unchecked. "Political correctness and this belief that families are sacred cows, and cultural sensitivities: all those things conspired to seal the fate of these [women]."

Even after the horrific murders, Mohammed Shafia had nothing good to say about the dead girls. "Even if they come back to life a hundred time, if I have a cleaver in my hand, I will cut [them] in pieces. Not once, but a hundred time," he ranted.

"May the devil shit on their graves… whore… honourless girl… They betrayed kindness, they betrayed Islam, they betrayed our religion and creed, they betrayed our tradition, they betrayed everything." He added, "There is nothing more valuable than our honour."

Click here to read the National Post 's full report on Without Honour: The True Story of the Shafia Family and the Kingston Canal Murders.

Previous posts here on WWW:
"Honour killing trial: video on dad's testimony"
"GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY in Shafia honour killings"
"What's wrong with Afghans?"