Sister 'said Shafilea was stabbed'

Alesha Ahmed told a family friend her sister Shafilea was "stabbed" by their father and the body was "in pieces", a jury has heard.

Shafilea's parents Iftikhar, 52, and Farzana, 49, deny murdering the 17-year-old by suffocating her at the family home in Warrington, Cheshire, in September 2003.

The teenager's decomposed remains were discovered in Cumbria in February 2004 but it was not until 2010 that Alesha provided police with the "final piece of the puzzle" about her death, the prosecution said.

Giving evidence, Sehreen Shafaat, 22, a close friend of the Ahmed children, said Alesha told her that Mr Ahmed stabbed Shafilea.

Law graduate Miss Shafaat, a trainee barrister, told the jury she had known the family as a small child and after Shafilea's death became close to the Ahmeds' other daughters Alesha and Mevish.

They attended the same college and she would frequently socialise or study with them at their home, the jury heard.

Following a study session, Miss Shafaat said she and Alesha were in her car when Miss Ahmed turned to her and said the family "were not getting on".

Miss Shafaat, wearing a black headscarf, added: "Alesha said there was no happiness and although the family looked happy on the outside, it wasn't happy on the inside."

She described Alesha as "upset" and "crying" and said: "And then she just came out with 'My dad did it'."

Earlier in the trial, Alesha Ahmed described how her parents pushed Shafilea on to the settee in their house and she heard her mother say "Just finish it here" in Urdu as they forced a plastic bag into the teenager's mouth and suffocated her in front of their other children. The couple murdered their "Westernised" daughter because they believed her conduct was bringing shame on the family, the prosecution say.