ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – After a Kurdish woman introduced herself as a Jew in a story she told the Israeli media -- claiming her husband intended to hand her over to the Islamic State (ISIS) – her spouse in Iraqi Kurdistan dismissed the claims, saying she had deceived everyone in order to get asylum in Israel.
Israel’s Channel 2 television reported that a Kurdish woman identified as Liza had fled her husband in Kurdistan, fearing threats that he allegedly posed to her. She told the channel that her husband had wanted to hand her over to ISIS, to suffer the fate of girls and women from the Yezidi religious minority who were captured by the militants, to be abused and sold as sex slaves.
“I was afraid of my life because he was threatening me, saying that if I was not committed to the Islamic principle of the Quran he would hand me over to ISIS. That is why I felt an outrageous risk to my life, because I saw with my own eyes what happened to the Yezidis. They were all killed, just because they were not Muslims,” the woman said in the report.
But Sayed Gull Ata Qadir, the husband she left behind, was tracked down by Rudaw in Sulaimani. He dismissed the claims made against him, saying his wife’s whole purpose was to obtain asylum in Israel. She “lied” to them about him, he claimed.
“I married Bahar Mohammed Ghafour (Liza) and had a happy life with her. At first she wanted to work and I opened a hairdressing shop for her at our small house. After that, her attitude and behavior changed. She would everyday find excuses against me. At the end we took our issues to the court and our case is there now,” Qadir told Rudaw.
He added that his wife “took $40,000 with her and left” for Turkey, leaving behind their four children. In Turkey, he said, “she surrendered to the UN.”
Her name “is not Liza, but Bahar. She is not Jewish, but a Muslim and she lied to them,” he claimed.
“Undoubtedly, I will visit the Israeli Embassy in Turkey to file a complaint against Bahar,” Qadir told Rudaw.
He also strongly dismissed charges Bahar made against him, telling Israeli authorities that her husband became a radical and always threatened her life.
“Her comments are baseless and inaccurate. When I married this woman she used to wear hijab. She was my wife for 20 years. Everybody in this city knows who I am,” Qadir said, explaining that he is not a very religious man.
“My wife’s family are Muslims and they do pray. But I have never prayed in my life,” he said.
“My children are going crazy over their mother’s charges against me. She did all this in order to obtain asylum,” he said.
Israeli authorities had reportedly helped the woman reach Israel.
Qadir claimed that his wife was not the only one in her family to try and trick authorities in granting her asylum.
“Two of Bahar’s sisters went to Europe in the same way,” he claimed.
Photos from Ata Qadir showing moments of his life with his estranged wife.
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