The 24-year-old Ahmad-Sobair O. is on trial after admitting to police that he killed his 16-year-old sister Morsal O. on May 15, 2008 because she had turned away from her family. The girl died after suffering 23 stab wounds in a Sankt Georg district parking lot. Both siblings, who immigrated to Germany 13 years ago, have German citizenship.

The two parents of the family, as well as the girl’s younger brother refused to testify. Her sister is scheduled to testify on Monday afternoon.

Before she was murdered, Morsal O. had been seen by emergency youth services on several occasions, suffering from pressures by her family, which did not approve of her Western lifestyle.

Her brother had already been prosecuted for assaulting her and others. He was sentenced in March on an assault charge to one year and five months without possibility of probation. He had requested his March sentence be deferred, but was notified in writing – a day before the stabbing – that the request had been rejected.

Now state prosecutors have accused her 46-year-old father of abusing the girl in May 2008, a spokesperson told news agency DDP on Monday.

A series of six honour killings – including the shooting at a bus stop of 23-year-old Turkish woman Hatun Sürücü in Berlin – shook Germany in 2005. Sürücü’s youngest brother, Ayhan Sürücü, later confessed to killing her because he did not approve of her Western lifestyle.