California :Iraqi Woman Severely Beaten in California Home Dies

A woman from Iraq who was found beaten next to a threatening note saying "go back to your country" has died, and police are investigating the possibility of a hate crime.

Hanif Mohebi, the director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Shaima Alawadi was taken off life support Saturday afternoon.

Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five, had been hospitalized since her 17-year-old daughter found her unconscious in the dining room of the family's suburban San Diego house on Wednesday, police Lt. Steve Shakowski said...read more

http://flne.ws/27563995 on Fluent News

Wife Beater - Actor Dennis Waterman - Lorna Nicol Hopes This Image Will Shame Waterman Who Almost Died At The Hands Of Her Husband Ian Petrie

After years of being deemed a liar and feeling uneasy about how her marriage ending, Rula Lenska, can finally breath a sigh of relief. Saying he feels “utterly ashamed” Waterman tried to explain himself, admitting to slapping and punching Miss Lenska on two separate occasions.

http://widk.com/2012/03/22/famous-tv-star-physically-assaulted-his-former-wife-leaving-her-battered-in-hospital/

Fariba Amani Disappeared During A Cruise With Her Boyfriend - Reports Of A Rocky Relationship - Could She Be A Victim Of Domestic Violence On the High Seas ?

http://costaconcordiaimbroglioni.blogspot.com/2012/03/cruisefariba-amana-what-happened-to-her.html


The family of a B.C. woman who went missing last week from a cruise ship off the Florida coast is wondering why her boyfriend has yet to contact them.

Fariba Amani, 47, was on a two-day cruise from Florida to the Bahamas with her boyfriend Ramiz Golshani, 46, when she was went missing.

Golshani reportedly told authorities he last saw Amani at 1 a.m. on Wednesday when she went inside a gift shop and he left for a casino. When he woke the next morning, she was nowhere to be found.


The U.S. Coast Guard launched a high-profile search for Amani, but were unable to find anything. They scoured the ship and say they believe that Amani somehow fell overboard. U.S. search and rescue crews also searched the waters between Bahamas and Florida, covering an area of nearly 19,000 square kilometres, but failed to find her.

U.S. customs officials believe Fariba was on the ship when it left the Bahamas on Feb. 28 because passengers must swipe a card to board the ship.

Amani's sister, Saloumeh Amani, says even though the cruise returned to port days ago, her family still hasn't heard anything from Golshani.

"He has not reached out to us. He has not contacted us," Amani told CTV's Canada AM Wednesday from Vancouver.


"I don't think it would be very difficult for him to find a way to get a hold of us. The Iranian community here is not that large and everyone knows each other. If he really wanted to, he could have reached out to us days ago when he returned."


Golshani has declined to be interviewed; he told CTV British Columbia that he's too upset to speak to media.


Amani says while her family has been in touch with the FBI, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the RCMP, no one is revealing much about their investigation.


Amani says she last spoke to her sister on the day she left for the cruise.

"She was really excited to go. It was her first time on a cruise and she's a very adventurous person and wants to experience everything to the fullest. She was really looking forward to it," she says.

She also noted that her sister, a mother of two, had told her that her relationship with Golshani was rocky.

"She had taken this trip even though she did not think she was going to stay with him. She thought that by maybe taking this trip with him, things might get better, things might change, they might be able to solve some of their problems and if not, she would return and break up with him," she said.

In the family's search for answers, they found that Amani had spoken to a private investigator a few months ago in regards to a man she had been dating. She eventually chose not to hire the investigator.

Amani says as soon as she heard her sister was missing, she realized that no one from her family had ever met her sister's boyfriend.

"I don't know this guy, is what I kept thinking to myself. I've never met him before. He's never introduced himself to us. And I don't know anything about him," she said.

Amani says the family is coping as best they can but they realize there is little chance of seeing Fariba alive again.

"The first day was the most difficult and we all gathered together to grieve. But then, we still had hope then… Now, we are facing the reality that we may never see her again," she said, her voice trailing off.


Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120307/missing-woman-cruise-amani-120307/#ixzz1octoflUZ

Donald Banfield : Retired bookie who went missing ELEVEN years ago 'was murdered by wife and daughter over sale of family home'

A man was killed by his wife and daughter after announcing he was leaving them to start a new life, a court heard yesterday.

Donald Banfield mysteriously disappeared 11 years ago after he signed the contract on the sale of the family home.

The move would have effectively left his wife Shirley, 54, and daughter Lynette, 29, homeless  and scraping by, prosecutors said. And in selling the house, he had ‘signed his own death warrant’, it was alleged.

Shirley (right) and Lynette Banfield, on trial in London accused of killing Shirley's husband, 63-year-old retired bookmaker Don Banfield

The 63-year-old, who had only just retired from his job as the manager of a bookmakers, vanished in May 2001.

His body has never been found, but yesterday his wife, now 64, and his 40-year-old daughter went on trial accused of murdering him.

 

They are alleged to have hatched a plot to kill Mr Banfield so they could raid his pension pot and claim his share of the family home,  netting a total of £123,000.

 

The Old Bailey heard how Mr Banfield had warned police and friends the pair were trying to kill him.

A day before his disappearance, he told his doctor he had woken in the middle of the night to find himself handcuffed to the bed, while his wife – a retired tax inspector – attempted to suffocate him with a plastic bag, the jury was told. He also allegedly complained he had been hit over the head in his sleep.

But his doctor merely referred him to a psychologist.

Suspected murder victim Don Banfield, who disappeared without trace more than a decade ago

Mr Banfield also reported the attacks to police on May 8, the court heard. He told how he feared his wife would poison him. But he told officers not to do anything, prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC said.

He told jurors: ‘He was biding his time. Once the house was sold he was planning on making a new life for himself on his own and with the £60,000 he was expecting from the sale of the house.

‘Shirley, on the other hand, was facing a rather bleaker future. She was then aged 54 and on the verge of being abandoned without enough money to rehouse both herself and Lynette.

‘Further, without Don’s pension, or only a share of it, they would have less money to live on than before.

‘This, the prosecution suggest, must have caused tension in the household, such as to make Don Banfield fear for his own safety.

‘Sadly, his fears were well-founded and on May 11, when he signed the contract for the sale [of the house] he was unwittingly signing his own death warrant.’

Accused: Daughter Lynette Banfield (left), outside the Old Bailey in London, and Mr Banfield's wife Shirley, of Canterbury, Kent (right)

 

His wife and daughter are alleged to have killed him some time that night or during the weekend that followed. Within days they had begun helping themselves to his pension and within a few weeks they had got their hands on Mr Banfield’s half-share of the profit from the sale of the home in Wealdstone, North-West London.

Neither woman reported him missing and it was not until May 19 that his friend Rod McIntosh went to the police.

During the initial hunt for Mr Banfield in 2001, his wife allegedly lied to officers compiling a photofit saying her husband had shaved off his moustache and that his hair had greyed.

Meanwhile, using forged documents, the pair were able to get their hands on pension payments of £29,000 from William Hill and a state pension totalling £34,000. After he vanished, the pair moved house a number of times before eventually settling in Canterbury in 2005.

The alleged plot began to unravel in 2008 when William Hill stopped paying the pension after becoming suspicious.

Detectives later dug up the garden and garage of Mr Banfield’s former home but they have never found his body. Mrs Banfield also allegedly told police her husband had turned up at their home in Kent in Christmas 2008 looking unwell and coughing up blood.

The two women have already pleaded guilty to two counts  of conspiracy to defraud. They deny murder. The trial continues.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112080/Retired-bookie-went-missing-ELEVEN-years-ago-killed-wife-daughter-claim-pension-pot.html#ixzz1obWs5HRW