Grandmother convicted of ‘honour killing’

A 70-year-old British grandmother is facing life imprisonment after being convicted yesterday of the “honour killing” of her son’s wife who she murdered after luring her to India.

Bachan Athwal, aged 70, who has 16 grandchildren, is believed to be one of the oldest women ever to be convicted of murder in England. Her son was also found guilty of murder.

They will be sentenced on September 19.

The two killed Sikh Heathrow Airport worker Surjit Kaur Athwal, who disappeared in December 1998 after she decided to walk out of her arranged marriage.

Bachan Athwal, a mother-of-six, was furious about her daughter-in-law’s plans to leave, which she believed would bring disgrace on the family, London’s Old Bailey court heard.

The pensioner was said to have told one family member that any divorce proceedings would “would happen over my dead body”.

The customs officer was lured to India by her mother-in-law, and her minibus driver husband Sukhdave Singh Athwal, aged 43, on the pretext of attending family weddings but was instead strangled.

The alarm was raised after the 27-year-old failed to return to her home in Hayes, west London. Her body, believed to be somewhere in the Punjab area in India, has never been found.

The verdict is the second involving honour killings in Britain this month. Iraqi Kurd Mahmod Mahmod was jailed for life for murdering his daughter for having an affair.

During the three month trial, the court heard that Surji’s 10-year arranged marriage was on the rocks and she was desperate to leave it.

She had asked for a divorce and was having an affair with a colleague.

Athwal and her son were so aggrieved they plotted to “get rid of her”, the jury was told.