Leila Hussein lived her last few weeks in terror. Moving constantly from safe house to safe house, she dared to stay no longer than four days at each. It was the price she was forced to pay after denouncing and divorcing her husband — the man she witnessed suffocate, stamp on, then stab their young daughter Rand in a brutal "honor" killing for which he has shown no remorse.
Though she feared reprisals for speaking out, she really believed that she would soon be safe. Arrangements were well under way to smuggle her to the Jordanian capital, Amman. In fact, she was on her way to meet the person who would help her escape when a car drew up alongside her and two other women who were walking her to a taxi. Five bullets were fired: three of them hit Leila, 41. She died in hospital after futile attempts to save her.
Her death, on May 17, is the shocking denouement to a tragedy which had its origins in an innocent friendship between her student daughter, Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, and a blond, 22-year-old British soldier known only as Paul.
The two had met while Rand, an English student at Basra University, was working as a volunteer helping displaced families and he was distributing water. Although their friendship appears to have involved just brief, snatched conversations over four months, Rand had confided her romantic feelings for Paul to her best friend, Zeinab, 19.
She died, still a virgin, four months after she had last seen him when her father, Abdel-Qader Ali, 46, discovered that she had been seen talking “to the enemy” in public. She had brought shame on his honor, was his defense, and he had to cleanse his family name. Despite openly admitting the murder, he has received no punishment.
It was two weeks after Rand’s death on March 16 that a grief-stricken Leila, unable to bear living under the same roof as her husband, found the strength to leave him. She had been beaten and had had her arm broken. It was a courageous move. Few women in Iraq would contemplate such a step.
Leila told the Observer newspaper in April: “No man can accept being left by a woman in Iraq. But I would prefer to be killed than sleep in the same bed as a man who was able to do what he did to his own daughter.”
Her words were to prove prescient. Leila turned to a small organization in Basra campaigning for the rights of women and against “honor” killings. Almost immediately she began receiving threats — notes calling her a “prostitute” and saying she deserved to die like her daughter.
Even her sons Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, whom she claimed aided their father in their sister’s killing, disowned her. Meanwhile, her husband, a former government employee, escaped any charges and even said that police had congratulated him on what he had done.
It is not known who killed Leila. All that is known is that she was staying at the house of “Mariam,” one of the women’s rights campaigners, whose identity the Observer agreed not to reveal. On the morning of May 17, they were joined by another volunteer worker and set off to meet “a contact” who was to help Leila travel to Amman, where she would be taken in by an Iraqi family.
“Leila was anxious, but she was also happy at having the chance to leave Iraq,” Mariam said.
Mariam said that when she awoke, Leila had already prepared breakfast, cleaned her house and even baked a date cake as a thank-you for the help she had been given. After the arrival of “Faisal,” the volunteer (whose identity is also being protected), the three left the house at 10:30am and started walking to the end of the street to get a taxi. They had walked less than 50m when they heard a car drive up fast and then gunshots rang out.
The attack, said by witnesses to have been carried out by three men, was over in minutes. Leila was hit by three bullets. Mariam was hit in her left arm and Faisal in her left leg.
Two men ran from their homes to help. They rushed Leila to hospital and a passing taxi took the other two. But Leila died at 3:20pm, despite several operations.
Police said the incident was a sectarian attack and that there was nothing to link Leila’s death to her family.
“Her ex-husband was not in Basra when it happened. We found out he was visiting relatives in Nassiriya with his two sons,” said Hassan Alaa, a senior officer at the local police station in Basra. “We believe the target was the women activists, rather than Mrs Hussein, and that she was unlucky to be in that place at that time.”
It is plausible. Since February 2006, two other activists from the same women’s organization have been killed in Basra. One of them was reportedly raped before being shot. The other, the only man working for the non-governmental organization (NGO), and a father of five who was responsible for the organization’s finances, was shot five months ago.
There could be many with a grudge against such organizations. However, Mariam believes Leila was targeted.
“When we were shot, they focused on Leila, not us,” she said.
Since the attack the NGO has stopped its work in Basra.
Mariam has moved out of her home. But within hours of speaking to the Observer a close friend went to her new address to deliver a message that had been left for her at her front door. It read: “Death to betrayers of Islam who don’t deserve God’s forgiveness. Speaking less you will live more.” She believes it was sent by Leila’s killers.
“They want this story to be buried with Leila,” she said. “But I cannot close my eyes to all this.”
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