Shafilea Ahmed: Sister 'lied to cover up for parents'

Shafilea Ahmed's sister has told a court she lied to police investigating the teenager's disappearance because she was "covering up for her parents".

Shafilea, 17, went missing from home in Warrington, Cheshire, in 2003. Her body was found six months later in Cumbria.

Chester Crown Court has heard after Alesha Ahmed was arrested in 2010 for a robbery at her home she told police her parents had killed her sister.

Iftikhar Ahmed, 52, and Farzana Ahmed, 49, deny murdering Shafilea.

Last week Ms Ahmed told the court she saw her mother and father force a plastic bag into Shafilea's mouth, suffocating her.

The prosecution alleges she was killed because she was Westernised and refused to obey her parents.

The jury was read passages from Ms Ahmed's first police interview in 2003 in which she told officers she woke up at 07:00 BST to find Shafilea was gone and her bag was also missing.

She went on in the interviews to say she did not think her parents had caused any harm to her sister.

I think it's actually ridiculous that I am on the stand and that my parents don't have the guts to say what they have done”

Cross-examined about the interview, Tom Bayliss QC, defending Mr Ahmed, said: "You were telling the truth, weren't you?"

She replied: "No, I was 15 years old and I was scared of my parents and had just witnessed a murder actually."

The barrister went on: "Nobody would expect to see (Shafilea) back if they had seen a murder happen. But it didn't happen, did it?"

Ms Ahmed said: "It did happen and we all saw it."

Mr Bayliss told the court police asked Ms Ahmed outright if she knew where her sister was.

He added: "The answer to that, according to you, was that Shafilea is dead."

She replied: "I was covering up for my parents."

Mr Bayliss asked Ms Ahmed why, when she was initially questioned, she suggested Shafilea may have been with a male friend.

He added: "The wicked and cruellest thing you could do in those circumstances, knowing someone is dead, is to lay suspicion on a wholly innocent individual."

She said: "I didn't put suspicion on someone else and I think it is wicked and cruel you are saying it yourself."

Mr Bayliss accused her of lying "time and time again" about the robbery, who the accomplices were and about her parents murdering Shafilea.

Ms Ahmed replied: "I think it's actually ridiculous that I am on the stand and that my parents don't have the guts to say what they have done.

"I have not told a lie. I think it's out of order that I am being put through this because they can't tell the truth themselves."

The court heard how in the days leading up to the robbery in 2010 Ms Ahmed - a full time student - was "flush" with money and £6,500 was paid into one of her bank accounts, on top of cash including student loans being paid into another account.

She claimed she had saved the money up through a job working at a petrol station, getting paid for doing girls' hair extensions, and from saving on rent when she moved in with her boyfriend.

The court was then told Ms Ahmed was forced to "pay off" the people who were threatening the robbery with a total of £3,700 in an attempt to stop it from happening.

She said people came to her home, stopped her on her way to work and that once she was driven to Birmingham to draw out money for these "mysterious men".

She said: "I was putting people off to try and stop the robbery... basically I was being pressured.

"I got myself into a mess and I was having to pay people off."

She told the court she could not go into the reasons for the pressure and Mr Bayliss accused her of being "evasive" and "avoiding naming your accomplices".

She replied: "I don't know who they are."

The court also heard Ms Ahmed lied to police by telling them £2,000 which had been paid out of one of her accounts had gone to charity.

She admitted it was "a ridiculous lie" and she had still not told the police "exactly why everything happened".

The trial continues.