Noor Faleh Almaleki Dies: Iraqi Woman In US Dead After Father Runs Her Over For Being Too Westernized

PHOENIX — A young Iraqi woman whose father allegedly hit her with his car because she had become too Westernized died from her injuries Monday after laying in a coma for nearly two weeks.

Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, underwent spinal surgery and had been in a hospital since Oct. 20, when police say her father ran down her and her boyfriend's mother with his Jeep as the women were walking across a parking lot in the west Phoenix suburb of Peoria.

The other woman, Amal Khalaf, is expected to survive.

Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, fled after the attack but was arrested Thursday when he arrived at Atlanta's airport, where he was sent from the United Kingdom after authorities denied him entrance.

Peoria police interviewed him and brought him back to Arizona over the weekend, but have declined to release what Almaleki said to them.

At a court hearing over the weekend in Phoenix, county prosecutor Stephanie Low told a judge that Almaleki admitted to committing the crime.

"By his own admission, this was an intentional act and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame on him and his family," Low said. "This was an attempt at an honor killing."

Family members had told police that Almaleki attacked his daughter because he believed she had become too Westernized and was not living according to his traditional Iraqi values.

Almaleki, wearing a jail uniform, said only his name and birth date during the hearing. He has declined requests to be interviewed.

Almaleki had faced charges of aggravated assault, but Peoria police spokesman Mike Tellef said the charges will be upgraded in light of Noor Faleh Almaleki's death.

Police said the Almalekis moved to Peoria from Iraq in the mid-1990s.

Comments

[longtimegone]

On May 8, 1970 (three days after the massacre at Kent State). In a "hippie commune" in Detroit's inner city, Arville Garland burst in at 2:30 am, a gun in each hand and killed his daughter, Sandy Garland, her partner, Scott Kabran, and friends, Greg Walls and Tony Brown. From the account in the Detroit Free Press at the time: "Many people say that Sandy and Scott and Greg and Tony deserved to be punished for the way they lived, for their long hair and their unconventional life-styles, for their hard rock music, for their dope. People say they might even have done what Garland did, if they had walked in on their daughter naked in bed, asleep with a hippie, a black boy in another bed in the same room." When the pace of change in society accelerates, confused parents can go over the edge, "clinging to guns and religion," not the proper way to hold either. I remember this case well, and I also recall that, in the climate of 1970, MANY parents were sympathetic with this particular father. Said Garland, of his daughter: "Children have no freedom. They are our property just like a book. She's my property and I can do whatever I want with her." Here is a link to an article in Time; notice how carefully the press contextualized the father in a sympathetic light, almost rationalizing his murders.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877135,00.html

[marley22]

You went back 40 years to find that one, did you?

[longtimegone]

I lived through it, then it's rehashed in John Sinclair's Guitar Army. The link to Time merely confirms that to the SilentMajority, this action was logical and most were in sympathy with the father, though of course his actions could not be openly sanctioned. This was an era when many white, middle class American parents were feeling the same disorientation at the rapid changes in society and, subsequently, irrational anger when those changes were manifested by their own children, as some Muslim parents seem to be experiencing now.
Were you implying that the passage of time makes the point irrelevant?

[silvercreeklady]

So ver sad!

[stptrck75]

Isn't religion wonderful? The same imaginary voice in the sky which he believes told him it was right and good to kill his daughter is the exact same one we rational people are supposed to "respect". No way.

Respect needs to be earned. There is nothing respectable about religion. Rather it is all deplorable lies.

This story kinda makes me wish hell was real...

[MosheDayanHero]

Well said!!!

[Jay818]

He probably secretly wanted to have his way with her and when he couldn't control her, killed her...sad.

[billtmore]

"merican values"

[silvercreeklady]

Iraq values!

[JohninFL]

This is unbelievable! He should be run down with the same vehicle he used to kill his own daughter!

[Targetdog]

"Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, fled after the attack"

If they so believe what they are doing is right, why do they always flee? 'Cause they are cowards!

[wijg]

Senseless.

[ignorantwillyharper]

What happen to the old eye for a eye, tie him to a post, brick wall, what ever and send a vehicle to run him over? If we'd start executing people the way they murder, it might start to remind them a eye for a eye will be carried out.

Oh, that's right we've thrown away the old Testment.

[Proxy11]

No we are a nation of laws.

[ignorantwillyharper]

Well hows that working out for us?

[Proxy11]

I don't know, how's it working out for?

[alohaz]

Honor killing? No comment really just....honor killing?

[colorperdaughter]

dishonorable man

[BunnyX]

One of the less often mentioned oxymorons.

[A Meat Beetle]

What a wonderful world it would be if people were guided by knowledge instead of belief.

[BobQueuePublic]

You speak well, all-seeing Relacement eye.

[stptrck75]

Well said!

[TampaStephie]

Extremism in any form is dangerous. This is so sad and yet, I can't help but feel this is the norm in Iraq. It's black or white, no gray area for the males in that country. Why did he ever bring his family here if he thought they might become too westernized? For the opportunity, yes. But it is naive, yes "extreme" to believe you can come here and not absorb some of the western ways. His poor daughter...so young, torn between friends and family, and finally, she pays the ultimate price for her father's extremism.

[petridish]

What a stunningly beautiful young woman, very sad story.

[Guitarsandmore]

Foreigners need to understand that moving to America means to become an American and live under American law. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land here, not Islam or any other religion for that matter.

[wycoff]

Why is this guy living in the US if he hates the west so much? Why didn't he stay in Iraq or immigrate to a Middle Eastern country? He's here simply to take what he can grab from American society without ever giving anything back- in fact, he outright despises the culture. How many other immigrants do we have here who are solely here to grab cash?

[ewj1]

Money, Money, Money. Control, control, & control. The real religions.