The regional court in Berlin found the two Afghan men, who are aged 28 and 24, guilty of murder for killing their sister on July 13, 2021. The court heard that the two had lured the victim to the home of the younger of the two brothers, where they then strangled her to death.

They then took the body of 34-year-old to Bavaria inside a suitcase, where they then buried it near to where the older of the two brothers lived.

The victim, a divorced mother-of-two, had tried to enter a new romantic relationship, which her two brothers opposed. According to media reports she had been forced into her failed marriage at the age of 16. The court heard that her ex-husband had also been violent toward her during their marriage in Afghanistan.

Misogynistic views

Presiding judge Thomas Gross said the men had denied their sister the right to choose her own life. He added that according to circumstantial evidence, they had viewed her as "inferior" to them simply because she was female, according to German news agency dpa.

The court said that her lifestyle contradicted the brothers' highly conservative values:

"You killed her only because she would not submit to your archaic way of life," the judge said, adding that he found the actions taken by the pair "deeply despicable."

Also read: Being an Afghan women is enough to get refugee status, says EU agency

Children relive trauma in court

The woman's children were also heard in court as saying that their mother at suffered violence at the hands of her brother before. Her ten-year-old daughter reported that her two uncles had "beaten" her mom.

Her 14-year-old son explained that the two had even "enslaved mother after her divorce," adding that they lived in fear of these two "bad people."

"My mother was a very good person," he said in court. The murder, he stressed, had "nothing to do with honor" but was rather a display of "dishonor."

Changing narrative

During the trial, the older of the two brothers had initially claimed that the sister's death had been an accident.

Later he changed his story to saying that his younger brother had not been involved in causing her death. 

Lawyers for the younger brother had therefore sought their client's acquittal, which the court rejected once it learned that DNA belonging to the younger sibling had been found under one of the woman's nails.

Also read: 300 Afghan children and women held in Pakistani prisons for illegal entry

At least 15 years behind bars

The court sentenced the two men each to life imprisonment. Under German law, this means an undetermined length in prison, with the first opportunity for parole coming up after spending at least 15 years in custody. 

Generally speaking, it is extremely rare that anyone spends more than a total of 20 years in prison under a single conviction.

Although life imprisonment is not a literal term, it considered the most severe punishment that can be imposed in Germany.

The verdict can still, however, be appealed.

Also read: Germany: Man sentenced to life in prison for refugee center attack

with AP, Frankfurter Rundschau, n-tv