Running down a daughter for 'honor'

Leonard Pitts:

We don't know why Faleh Hassan Almaleki came to this country in the mid-1990s, and it's unlikely he'll be able to tell us anytime soon. He's in jail in Maricopa County, Ariz., at this writing, in lieu of a $5 million cash bond. It hardly seems far-fetched, however, to suppose he emigrated from his native Iraq for the same reason immigrants typically seek these shores: America promises opportunity and freedom.

But one wonders if he truly knew the meaning of the words.

Almaleki is the 48-year-old Glendale, Ariz., man who stands accused of using his Jeep Cherokee to run down his 20-year-old daughter, Noor, and another woman, Amal Edan Khalaf. Khalaf, said to be the mother of Noor's boyfriend, is expected to survive the Oct. 20 attack in the parking lot of a state government building. Noor was less fortunate. She died last Monday.

About her, we know only a few things: She had a page on Facebook and another on MySpace. She was interested in modeling. And at some point she either went to Iraq and got married -- or went there and rejected the suitor her family had arranged for her. Police are still trying to determine which of those stories, both in circulation, is true. Either way, she returned to the States, where she moved in with her boyfriend and his mother.

Something else we know: Almaleki felt his Facebook-using, husband-rejecting daughter had become too ``westernized.'' His son, Peter-Ali, told a local TV news station that tensions ran high between father and daughter. Noor, he said, went ``out of her way'' to disrespect their conservative Muslim father.

And where Almaleki comes from, it is standard practice that the daughter who disrespects or brings shame upon her family is subject to what they call an honor killing. Repeating for emphasis: Almaleki is alleged to have run down two defenseless women as a matter of honor....

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Will the rest of the media make excuses for this deviant too the way they are writing briefs for the Fort Hood shooter? Are would it be appropriate to suggest that Islam makes some people crazy?