Muslim man alleged to have strangled pregnant girlfriend in honor killing

The boyfriend of a woman who was murdered while seven months pregnant is suspected of murdering her and their preborn baby in an ‘honor killing.’ Text messages allegedly reveal he had asked her to have an abortion.

According to The Daily Mail, police in Sweden have said that in April 2023, Saga Forsgren Elneborg, 20, was found strangled to death at her home about two hours from the capital of Stockholm. Prosecutors have argued that her boyfriend, Somali refugee 22-year-old Mohamedamin Abdirisek Ibrahim, killed her to avoid any shame that would come from introducing Saga to his Muslim family. He was charged with her killing last week but does not appear to be charged in the death of the baby — a boy Saga named Esaiah.

Prosecutors argue that Ibrahim was raised with the belief that dating outside of their culture was unacceptable, and he therefore hid his two-year relationship with Saga from his mother. In April 2023, he told Saga in a message, “Feels like I can almost feel my heartbeat all the way down to my stomach” when he thought about telling his family about their relationship and the baby. He sent Saga a text message saying he would tell his family on April 28 — the night that Saga was killed.

Prosecutor Elisabeth Anderson said a message from Saga that night asked him how it was going and said “talk to me,” but those messages were unanswered by Ibrahim. Anderson alleges that he went to Saga’s home that night and “violently” strangled her with the cord of a lamp. She also claimed that Ibrahim’s DNA was found under Saga’s fingernails.

“I mean that the murder took place in an honor context because the man wanted to preserve or restore his and his family’s honor by killing the woman who was carrying his child,” Anderson said in a press release.

Additional text messages show that Ibrahim pressured Saga to have an abortion, but she refused. “I know we can make it, but I won’t be able to keep my family,” he told her. “If it had been possible, there would have been no problem with keeping the child.”

Anderson wrote, “He never told his family about Saga or the child. But the suspect has been raised in a standard of honor, and he has learned that it is not OK for him to date a white woman. He must date a woman of the same culture. If he doesn’t, he will be excluded.”

Saga shared photos throughout her pregnancy of her positive pregnancy test, ultrasound images of her son, clothes and sneakers she had purchased for him, and his crib.

“She was so happy,” her mother told news outlet Nerikes Allehanda. “She would move to a new apartment and start her life as a mother. This is the worst thing imaginable.”

This problem of partner violence during pregnancy is a global one. In the United States, homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant women. According to one report, women in the U.S. are more likely to be murdered during pregnancy or soon after childbirth than to die from the three leading obstetric causes of maternal death (high blood pressure disorders, hemorrhage, or sepsis).

Ibrahim’s trial is scheduled to begin on April 10 and is expected to last for 15 days. He denies killing Saga and has told police he is “in denial” over her death.

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