German court jails Iraqi for honour killing

BERLIN, Oct 11 (Reuters) A German court today jailed an Iraq-born man for life for the ''honour killing'' of his ex-wife, a brutal murder that sparked debate about the integration of Muslims into mainstream German society.

Mahmud Raschid Kazim, 36, was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole because of the severity of the crime, the senior state court in Munich said.

In October 2006 Kazim stabbed his Iraq-born former wife Sazan, 24, twelve times on a street in a Munich suburb where she lived. Kazim has said the attack, which took place in front of their 5-year-old son, was punishment for Sazan divorcing him.

After stabbing her, Kazim doused the dying woman with petrol and set her on fire, court records said.

Germany is home to roughly 3.5 million Muslims, mainly people of Turkish origin.

In a high profile trial last year, a young Turkish man was sentenced to over nine years in jail for shooting his sister after she left a cousin from Turkey whom she had been forced to marry as a girl.

Two other brothers who prosecutors say helped organise the killing are on trial in the eastern German city of Leipzig.

REUTERS SYU BST2154