September 21, 2018
A Texas jury has sentenced Jordanian immigrant to death for a pair of 2012 “honor killings” that were part of an extensive plot to kill five people, including his daughter, in retribution for her leaving home, converting to Christianity and marrying a Christian.
One of the two killed was Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an Iranian-American, whom the killer believed had led his daughter to convert and marry a Christian. Bagherzadeh had converted to Christianity some years earlier.
Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan, 60, slumped slightly when the sentence was read, but did not react otherwise.
Irsan was found guilty of murder earlier. Next came the punishment phase which heard testimony about rapes, druggings, beatings and a previous homicide. That left both jurors and relatives of the victims sniffling and wiping tears.
Jurors sat through seven weeks of testimony about Irsan’s rage and desire to “wash his honor in blood,” quickly convicting Irsan of the capital murder of his daughter’s new husband, Coty Beavers, 28, and her best friend, Bagherzadeh, 30, a medical researcher who supported the marriage.
Almost an hour after the sentence was read, four women and three men from the jury came back to the courtroom to hug the surviving family members of Irsan’s victims. In tears, they introduced themselves and spoke quietly. They said it was tough decision, but they hoped the families could now have peace, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Afterward, Coty Beavers’ twin brother said the family would focus on the remaining trials: Irsan’s adult son, Nasim, who is charged with capital murder for shooting Bagherzadeh; and his adult daughter, Nadia, who is charged with stalking.
Bagherzedeh’s parents, who attended every day of the trial, asked family friend Kathy Soltani to speak for them.
“By taking Gelareh away from us, they took away a true human being who would have helped anyone in any way that crossed her path throughout her life,” Soltani said. “They took something good from our society.”
From the beginning of the trial in June, prosecutors said Irsan was insistent on punishing his daughter and anyone who supported her break from the family.
“He wanted to kill her,” prosecutor Jon Stephenson told jurors during his opening statements. “But he wanted to kill all those she loved first, so that she would suffer that much more before she died.”
During the trial, some of Irsan’s family testified they lived in fear of daily beatings, including with a length of garden hose and “sticks” like Irsan’s cane and 2-by-4 boards. Two of his sons said that was not true, however.
One of Irsan’s daughters also testified that he cheered the 9/11 attacks on America and praised Osama bin Laden, and told his children they should volunteer to become suicide bombers.
For eight weeks, prosecutors put on evidence that Irsan had been a violent offender with a history of money grubbing schemes since coming to America in 1979.
“He will lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, abuse, torture, stalk and kill to get what he wants,” assistant prosecutor Anna Emmons said during closing arguments.
She pointed to allegations that he raped his first wife, a blind woman he met in Iowa, then manipulated her into marriage. There were also allegations that he raped his oldest daughter and tried to kill her because she married a man Irsan did not approve of in 1999.
Special prosecutor Marie Primm wove together more than 20 years of Irsan’s actions to sway jurors against letting Irsan serve life without parole in the general population of prison. She reminded the jury that Irsan also killed a different son-in-law in 1999. Irsan testified that the killing was in self-defense and was found innocent of murder in a trial almost two decades ago. Other family members said Irsan blasted Amjad Alidam in the chest with a shotgun because he did not approve of Alidam’s marriage to his oldest daughter, then planted a pistol on the body.
“Ali Irsan gets to be the judge, jury and executioner of anyone who goes outside of Ali Irsan’s control.” she said.
In 2015, Irsan, his wife and another daughter were sentenced to federal prison for defrauding the Social Security system, one of several schemes that showed how Irsan financed trips back to Jordan and purchases of properties.
For example, he apparently often claimed that he lost baggage during flights and was able to obtain reimbursements from airlines for laptops, electronics and lost time. Those claims, prosecutors said, financed each trip.
He also convinced his mosque that he was renting his home and needed help paying rent and electricity bills. That scam ended when elders at the mosque learned that his “landlord” was really his wife, testimony showed.
Prosecutors showed that Irsan also opened dozens of credit card accounts in different names, including the names of deceased family members, to pay his bills. One such account, opened under his daughter’s name, went unpaid without her knowledge ruining her credit, testimony showed.
The prosecution was also able to show that he bilked thousands of dollars out of large corporations by claiming falls in department stores, or by faking injuries and then threatening lawsuits for product liability.
In addition to those scams, he also got food stamps, Medicaid and took advantage of other social safety nets by forcing family members to fake mental illness to receive disability payments.
Irsan testified that he has been disabled and unable to work since at least 1993, despite testimony that he cleared the land on his property and built fences by hand.
In 2014, a SWAT team swarmed Irsan’s compound north of Houston and arrested him for Social Security fraud. State prosecutors later charged Irsan and his son, Nasim Irsan, 24, with capital murder. The son’s trial is scheduled for next year. Testimony at the father’s trial showed that the son was the gunman who actually shot Bagherzadeh.
Despite lengthy testimony over five weeks, jurors deliberated for less than an hour to convict Irsan of capital murder in July.
The same jury then spent two weeks listening to testimony to determine whether Irsan should be sentenced to death or life without parole.
To sentence Irsan to die, jurors had to decide he would be a “future danger” to society and there were not enough mitigating circumstances to spare his life.
