And their daughter was suspected of killing her — possibly faking her own death, police and prosecutors say.
The case of the German Iraqi woman living in the southern city of Ingolstadt and named by the German newspaper Bild Shahraban K. has shocked many in Germany. Her parents had traveled from Munich to Ingolstadt to look for her after she stopped answering their calls — and found her car and body on August 16.
Police began investigating and issued an initial statement about a murder, saying it appeared the woman was the “victim of a violent crime”. But doubts soon arose about her identity, as the victim’s DNA and fingerprints did not match those of the missing woman. an interview.
A day later, in the course of their investigation, police found “entirely new circumstances” and arrested the missing 23-year-old along with a 23-year-old Kosovo man on suspicion of murder, police said in a statement.
The victim has been named in German media as Algerian Khadija O, also 23, who “looked strikingly like the missing woman” according to investigators.
At the time, authorities gave no motive for the murder.
Now they believe the suspects had devised a plan to find someone who could pass as the young woman, “who wanted to go into hiding because of a family quarrel” and so decided to fake her own death, according to a statement from the prosecutor. Monday.
Police say they believe the suspect “chatted with several young women” who looked like her online and tried to lure them into meeting with false promises.
On August 16, the two suspects traveled to the area of Heilbronn, in the neighboring state of Baden-Württemberg, to collect the victim from her home, police said. They then took her to a wooded area and stabbed her several times before driving back to Ingolstadt, where they left the body in the back of the vehicle.
While the two suspects, now 24, have been in custody since August on suspicion of murder, a district court issued arrest warrants against them late last week in connection with the more serious crime of murder, which carries a life sentence.
The investigation is ongoing.
