The court heard Mumtaz, who suffers from a genetic condition which has left him deformed, married his bride in an arranged ceremony in Pakistan.
This was 14 months before she died while six months pregnant with their first child.
In the early hours of a July 2009 morning, Mumtaz, who spoke no English, had sounded ‘stressed' when she called her parents to tell them her husband – and others in their neighbourhood – had been suggesting she may have become pregnant during a solo trip to Pakistan.
But the judge said a ‘less unlikely explanation for what happened' was that the defendants believed Naila had been possessed by a jinn (spirit) ‘and that they deliberately smothered her in order to get rid of the jinn'.
The judge added: ‘That's not an easy thing for those of us in the West to understand, but the evidence (from the trial) was that a belief in jinns is widespread in the community in which they lived.'
During the trial, the prosecutor said family members had told police a person had been present at the house praying ‘to get the spirit out of her'.
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