Man charged with murdering his wife by slitting her throat

Prosecutors charged an Acre man Monday with murdering his wife and trying to conceal the crime, telling the Haifa District Court that he used a butcher’s knife to slit her throat in a brutal and premeditated slaying before sending messages from her phone to himself and other family members in an attempt to hide the fact that she was already dead.

Muhammad Halil Lebabidi, 37, was indicted for the December 11, 2018, murder of Iman Ahmed Awad, with whom he shared an apartment in the port city of Acre. He was also charged with obstructing justice.

Prosecutors said that, amid tensions in their relationship, Lebabidi took home a knife from his family’s butcher business three days before he allegedly carried out the crime.

At around 11 a.m. on the morning of December 11 he went to their home on Herzog Street, where he found Awad in the bedroom. He stabbed her with the knife, prosecutors told the court, and though Ahmad tried to defend herself, Lebabidi completely slit her throat, causing her death, they said.

After the murder, the defendant “took many measures with the aim of distancing himself from the scene and the murder act and to hide his involvement in her death,” the charge sheet added.

He allegedly threw the knife and the victim’s clothes away, sent messages from her cellphone to himself and her family, and moved from location to location. The defendant pretended that the victim was still alive “in order to obstruct the course of justice,” prosecutors charged.

Prosecutors asked that Lebabidi be held until the end of proceedings.

Awad’s death brought to 25 the number of women murdered during 2018 in domestic violence, the highest toll in years, amid national protests for more action to combat the phenomenon.