The Globe and Mail

Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis after the verdicts:

“This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances. We all think of these four, wonderful women now who died needless deaths. This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy.”

Ms. Yahya and Mr. Shafia in a conversation secretly recorded by police days before their arrests:

Ms. Yahya: “I know [Zainab] was already done, but I wish two others weren't.”

Mr. Shafia: “No Tooba, they messed up. There was no other way.”

Mr. Shafia: “They were treacherous. They betrayed both themselves and to us. Like this woman standing on the side of the road and if you stop the car she would go with you anywhere. For the love of God, Tooba, damnation on this life of ours, on these years of life that we lead. When I tell you to be patient you tell me that it is hard. It isn't harder than watching them every hour with [boyfriend]. For this reason, whenever I see those pictures, I am consoled. I say to myself, ‘You did well. Would that they come back to life a hundred times for you to do the same again.’ That's how hurt I am. Tooba, they betrayed us immensely. They violated us immensely. There can be no betrayal, no treachery, no violation more than this.”

Mr. Shafia captured in secret police wiretaps speaking to Ms. Yahya or Hamed:

“Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows...nothing is more dear to me than my honour.”

“Let's leave our destiny to God and may God never make me, you or your mother honourless. I don't accept this dishonour.”

“This is my word to you: Be I dead or alive, nothing in the world is above than your honour.”

“I am telling you now and I was telling you before that whoever play with my honour, my words are the same...There is no value of life without honour.”

“If we remain alive one night or one year, we have no tension in our hearts, [thinking that] our daughter is in the arms of this or that boy, in the arms of this or that man. God curse their generation. Curse of God on both of them, on their kind. God's curse on them for generations...May the devil [defecate] on their graves. Is that what a daughter should be? Would [a daughter] be such a whore?”

Mr. Shafia on the stand explaining the phrase “May the devil [defecate] on their graves.”

“To me it means that the devil would go out and check with them in graves. If they have done a good thing it would be good. If they did bad it would be up to God what to do.”

Mr. Shafia responding to suggestions he killed his family members in a cross-examination by Crown attorney Laurie Lacelle:

Mr. Shafia: “Never, respected lady, we never allow ourselves to do that and Tooba is a mom. That's one of her children, like [if] my son...damage or hurt one of his sisters the mom will be the first to go and complain. How is it possible that someone will do that to his or her children, respected lady?”

Ms. Lacelle: “You might do it if you thought they were whores.”

Mr. Shafia: “No, I will again respected lady will tell you that only Zainab, when she did that, and Sahar, which I didn't know at that time and two others, they were innocent and one was just a child, and nothing, nothing can cause this, that a person...do such a terrible and heinous thing.”

Mr. Shafia on the stand:

“My honour is important for me, but the honour and reputation of a human being, to kill someone you can't regain your reputation and honour. Respected lady, you should know that. In our culture, in our religion, if someone kills his wife or daughter, there is no honourless person more than that person ... When my girls died people think and imagine different ways, but for me, anyone in our culture and our religion, anyone who kill his children or daughter, that person really becomes shameless. That thing doesn't restore honour. Can you tell me in which religion you kill someone and then that person gain honour? I don't call that honour.”

Ms. Yahya to Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis after he put to her the Crown theory of what happened the night of the deaths:

“No, dear sir. This is what were made in your brain. These are all your stories in the past 2 1/2 years. What I heard in the past 2 1/2 years that say a mom made up a story in order to tell her child, when a mother make a story for her child in order to put her child to sleep ... But this is a court date. People want to know the truth, not to make up stories from your mind.”

Ms. Yahya to Laarhuis on her fifth day of cross-examination:

“Under suspicion you brought a respectful family and put them in jail for 2 1/2 years ... You guys took our freedom and took the freedom of our family and put my son in jail ... Ask them (police) do they know or did they know their proper way of interrogations. I was a lady that came from an Asian country. I had never seen a police station in my life.”

Zainab Shafia in a text message to her boyfriend Ammar Wahid:

“One thing [I'm] really happy about is that it was my dream to marry u [and] I did it once. Even one day if [something] happens to us like dead I [won't] die with out my dream being full filled ... We had an amazing love story 2gether.”