Swedish court convicts couple over honour killing

A Swedish appeals court on Tuesday sentenced an Afghan couple to 10 years in prison for the grisly 2005 murder of their daughter's boyfriend.

Raoof and Leyla Ataei were found guilty of the murder even though their son Abdulmajid has already spent four years in prison after confessing to the killing.

"The court recognises that this was a so-called honour killing," the Goeta Appeals Court in the town of Joenkoeping, which lies some 300 kilometres (185 miles) southwest of Stockholm, said in a statement.

Their son, who was 17 at the time of the murder and said after being released that he had taken the blame to protect his parents, was sentenced to 16 months' juvenile detention on Tuesday. He was immediately released due to time already served.

The daughter's Afghan boyfriend, Abbas Rezai, was found dead at the family home after being beaten with a rod iron, a baseball bat, stabbed and having hot oil poured over him.

The convicted couple, who are to be deported when their sentence is served, have denied murdering Rezai and claimed that their son changed his story so that he could remain in Sweden.

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