London: A Kurdish Muslim from Iraq has been jailed for life for slitting his teenage daughter's throat in a so-called "honour killing" after she decided to marry a Lebanese Christian.

Sentencing Abdalla Yones, 47, at the Old Bailey on September 29, Judge Neil Denison said the killing was "a tragic story arising out of irreconcilable cultural differences between traditional Kurdish values and those of Western society".

Scotland Yard described the 16-year-old girl Heshu Yones's death as an "honour killing" brought about by a "clash of cultures" between Yones - a refugee from Iraqi Kurdistan, where such murders are common - and his Westernised daughter.

Heshu began a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old boy, a fellow pupil at William Moriss Academy, Fulham, West London, who was from a Lebanese Christian background, the court was told.

The court heard that her schoolwork was suffering and she had a poor attendance record. Three days before the murder in October 2002, her father received an anonymous letter written in Kurdish saying Heshu was "behaving like a prostitute".

The letter was sent to the South London offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan where Yones was a volunteer worker.

Yones, who gained indefinite leave to remain in Britain after opposing Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, begged the Old Bailey judge to order his execution.

PTI