Since 30-year-old immigrant Yasir Darraji came to America, he’s apparently become a successful businessman. Even though he made his home in Washington state, his heart yearned for the culture he soaked up back home in his Bedouin tent. His goat never gave him half the grief his Americanized wife did before he killed her. His neighbors say things aren’t what they seem.
Immigrant ways in Washington
Around 9 p.m. one recent February evening, a resident of Spokane, Washington saw something a little suspicious, even for Antifa® controlled territory, so they called police. Underfunded officers eventually arrived to find a blazing car parked along the street with “what appeared to be a person trapped inside.”
The charred corpse turned out to be Iraqi immigrant Ibtihal Darraji. Forensic reports revealed that Ibtihal “had been strangled to death before an accelerant was poured on her body to destroy the evidence.” The first person detectives went looking for was her ex-husband. He wasn’t hard to find.
Police were watching extremely close for his reaction when they informed him of his wife’s murder. She obviously didn’t strangle herself then douse herself with gasoline, so she had it done to her. “He briefly looked like he might cry,” detectives wrote, “but quickly stopped and said it didn’t matter because she was his ex-wife.”
Former Department of Social and Health Services translator Arwa Burke wants the court to treat it as an “honor killing” and show the immigrant Defendant some leniency. It’s allowed where he comes from but even Burke admits that Darraji is in America now, whether he likes it or not.
Before her death, Yasir kept trying to convince his ex-wife Ibtihal to abandon her young children in America, leave her “independent lifestyle in Washington state” and return with him to the repressive regime. She wasn’t interested. Probably because she knew she would be dead the moment she set foot in Iraq. She was pregnant and unmarried.
Even if she didn’t know who the father was for sure, she knew it wasn’t Yasir. The immigrant was busy getting someone else pregnant. According to court documents, “Yasir held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill the unborn child in her stomach.”
Controversy over the charges
The “stone faced” reaction which Yasir Darraji displayed when hearing the news of his former wife’s murder has sparked a firestorm of controversy “over what the charges should be.” The Iraqi immigrant didn’t say much to police but he did mention that he’s still angry over the divorce and also, “his ex-wife tried to provoke him by “going to night clubs.”
Word on the street in the “local Iraqi community” said that Ibtihal was pregnant which would “bring great shame in their culture.” They’re convinced it was an honor killing, which makes it okay.
Arwa Burke got dragged into the controversy because he spent years “working within the Spokane Iraqi community.” What we call “crimes” are perfectly acceptable in Persia.
He bangs his head on that wall every day talking to his immigrant clients. “They need to remember that once you decided to come to America” they need to “accept this culture and adjust with it.” If they don’t like it, he suggests, “go somewhere with the culture you like.”
Burke is convinced that “Yasir would’ve acted upon his murderous desire much earlier.” There was only one snag stopping the immigrant. He “knew that he would be punished by the U.S. court system.” That’s why he tried to lure Ibtihal back to Iraq. There, honor killings are culturally justified and don’t get in the way of your career.
“You could see on his face that he wished he could hurt her physically. But he was afraid because here is not Iraq.” When she wouldn’t cooperate with the plan, Yasir “grew outraged and threatened to end her life.” A friend notes, even though “they were divorced, in their culture, the ex-wife’s lifestyle can still bring shame to the ex-husband.”