A masked 18 year old who was carrying a hammer and a chainsaw burst into a busy shopping mall in Minsk, Belarus, decapitating one woman and seriously injuring another.
An onlooker told the Belarus news website Onliner: “He lashed out at the nearest person and cut off her head. When he took out a chainsaw, shoppers first thought it was some kind of game. Then he cut one woman badly with the chainsaw and hit her with a hammer. She died. He also attacked others.”
Hundreds of people were in the shopping center at the time of the attack. Police say the assailant was detained at the time of the attack.
A 63 year old Muslim immigrant from Jordan shot his 27 year old daughter twice in the head while she was sleeping, killing her.
Jamal Mansour, of Rock River, Ohio, walked into his daughter Tahini’s bedroom at about 1:15 a.m. and shot her twice in the head while she slept. Police rushed to the house after Tahani’s brother called 911 to report the shooting. She died about ten hours later at a local hospital.
On the day of the shooting, Mansour stood before a judge and claimed shooting her in the head twice was an “accident.” When the family was asked why they thought the father would shoot his own daughter, they blamed a medical condition, claiming he is a diabetic. However, Lt. George Lichman with the Rocky River Police said that an evaluation showed that the father was not under any medical care at the time of the incident or since he’s been in jail.
Police say they don’t know of any motive other than an argument occurring between the father and daughter, but Daniel Akbari, an expert on Islamic honor killings, says what happened bears all the hallmarks of an honor killing: “Mr. Mansour might have assimilated to Western culture sufficiently to shave his beard and wear jeans but not to accept his daughter behaving like western girls.” Akbari is the author of “Honor Killing: A Professional’s Guide to Sexual Relations and Ghayra Violence from the Islamic Sources.”
Tahini’s father was angry with her for taking a business trip to Las Vegas of which he did not approve, the family members told police.
Tahini was educated and successful, having a doctorate of pharmacy from Northeast Ohio Medical University in 2013. She worked as a pharmacist for university hospitals and taught at the University of Findlay’s medical school.
Mansour emigrated from Jordan to the United States in 1978 and became a U.S. citizen. He owns several businesses in the Cleveland area with his brother including gas stations and grocery stores, and he is participating in a family business venture in Jerusalem involving the construction of an apartment complex.
