Daniel Dale

The Toronto Star

KINGSTON – The father, mother and brother of the three teenage girls found dead in a car submerged in a canal near Kingston on June 30 have been charged with first-degree murder.

Montreal residents Mohammed Shafi, an electronics businessman, wife Tooba Mohammad Yhaya and 18-year-old son Hamid Mohammed Shafi were also charged with the killing of the fourth person found in the Rideau Canal, 50-year-old Rona Amir Mohammed. Though Shafi originally told Kingston police Mohammed was his cousin, she is actually his first wife, Insp. Brian Begbie said at a 2 p.m. news conference.

Begbie and chief Stephen Tanner would not directly say why they believe the family committed the murders. Asked whether he believed they were "honour" killings, as suggested in an email to police by Mohammed's sister Diba Masoomi, who lives in France, Tanner suggested it was possible but not certain.

"That will form a part of the ongoing investigation," he said. "There are family members in a variety of parts of the world, and investigators will be following up with them. I did receive one email correspondence from someone who was claiming to be a relative — most likely was — that indicated that that could be one possibility. But yet again, that person is far removed from Canadian soil and from direct knowledge. So we have to, and will, investigate that fully in the coming weeks."

Honour killings are typically those committed by males against female relatives who are perceived to have brought shame upon the family. The Shafi family hails from Kabul, Afghanistan, a country in which honour crimes are more common, and lived in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, for 15 years before arriving in Canada two years ago.

The Shafis are not conservative Muslims, a Montreal relative of Tooba Mohammad Yhaya, Said Fazel, has told the Star.

The deceased teenage girls are Zainab Shafi, 19, Sahar Shafi, 17, and Geeti Shafi, 13. Tanner said that the behaviour of one or more of the teenagers may have contributed to the motive for the killing.

"Some of us have different core beliefs, different family values, different sets of rules; certainly these individuals, in particular the three teenagers, were Canadian teenagers who have all the freedom and rights of expression of all Canadians," Tanner said. "Whether that was a part of the motive within the family — based on one of the girls' or more of the girls' behaviour — is open to a little bit of speculation, but combined with other investigative issues as well."

In the immediate aftermath of the deaths, an apparently distraught Yhaya told a Star reporter that Zainab liked to practice driving and may have accidentally driven into the water; a sobbing Mohammed Shafi, who said he could not eat or sleep, said Sahar also might have been driving.

Begbie said those claims were false.

They have each been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy to commit murder.